Author Archive: Retro

Orphan girl is adopted by family which has three brothers each of whom are in love with her.

“Regeneration” (72 min.) is a powerful slum melodrama produced in 1915 on location in the lower east side of New York City, with a gaggle of authentic low-life types performing alongside professional actors.

Fatty’s only surviving feature film.

This independently made drama was loosely adapted from the Edgar Allen Poe poem (the filmmakers had to work hard to stretch it out to five-reel feature length). Annabel Lee (Lorraine Harding) lives on a hill in a little fishing village. She loves David Martin (Jack O’Brien), but her father (Louis Stearns) doesn’t think he would make a suitable husband. In spite of this, he promises to give his consent to the marriage if Martin goes away for a year as a test of the young couple’s love. Martin agrees and heads off on a ship with his cook. The jealous crew, however, sends the two of them off in a life boat during a storm. They land on a desert island, but the cook catches a fever and dies, leaving Martin by himself. Martin’s mother (Florida Kingsley) hears that her son has drowned and moves in with Annabel. A ship finally sees Martin’s signals and [...]

Produced by none other than Cecil B. DeMille, this riotous silent comedy stars Rod La Rocque as Jerry Cleggert, a descendant of a notorious family of pirates forced to marry on the deck of the rotting “Jasper B.” or forfeit a large inheritance. Jerry finds the perfect would-be spouse in pretty Agatha Fairhaven (Mildred Harris but the couple are waylaid en route to the important nuptials by a gang of bandits. The highlight of the comedy was a wild spree in a driverless taxi cap pursued not only by the gangsters but by local, state and Federal authorities as well. Needless to say, the exasperated couple manages to say their “I dos” right before the deadline. Leading lady Mildred Harris was the first wife of comedy star Charles Chaplin, a fact she reportedly never let anyone forget.

Group of diverse individuals are stranded in the wilderness after snowstorm. Dir. O’Dale Ireland.

When circus aerialist Polly Fisher is injured, she is taken to the nearby home of minister John Hartley. The two fall in love and marry secretly. But when the news leaks out, the minister loses his pastorate over disdain by the parishioners for Polly’s background as a performer. Polly must decide whether to stay with the man she loves or leave him for the good of his calling.

Two ships are caught in the Arctic ice.

Vincent Barton, the son of the vice-president of a railroad company, takes a job as the depot agent at Bynes. He fires one of Tony Sharkey’s henchmen, scheming against the railroad, and, as a result, a fight takes place and a switching order is overlooked which nearly results in a major wreck. Realizing the situation at Hynes, Helen Barton, Vincent’s sister, dashes to Hynes in her roadster and puts together a severed telegraph wire to put the station back in communications with headquarters. Meanwhile, Helen’s sweetheart, Tom Lawson, is fighting with Sharkey in a run-away engine and it is headed for an open bridge over a river.