Author Archive: Retro

A young secretary is locked in an airtight vault by a robber. Only her boss knows the combination, and he is off on a journey. Can the boss’s son locate his absent-minded father before it is too late for the girl?

Inventor Ignatius Pollard develops a new “Pavement Polisher” to clean the streets, but a demonstration of the device does not go as planned.

“Music Forward!” is the order given by a lady in Colonial costume, and in march a group of five musicians, working industriously at their instruments. The directress stands them in a row, and taking the head off each, throws it onto a huge music staff and each becomes a note of the scale. The whole bodies appear again, after which the manipulator seems to wrap them up in a large sheet of music, which is then shown to contain nothing. The paper is rolled up again, and a cane is held, perpendicularly, in a horizontal position to the sheet, when the musicians, each about one-twentieth of the natural stature, issue from the paper and parade up and down the narrow stick. This done, a pretty effect in human notes, which are the players’ heads, is shown, after which the little band and their directress march out again.

Hazel, the miller’s daughter, is courted by a country boy and a sophisticated city boy. Her father favors the country boy, but she elopes with the city boy. Before they can marry, his wife shows up and stops the ceremony. Hazel tries to return to her father, but he has disowned her. She jumps into the river, but is rescued by the country boy, who later marries her.

A District Attorney’s outspoken stand on abortion gets him in trouble with the local community.

A twisted sleazebag stalks and strangles gorgeous women in this Spanish terror classic.

In this early stop-motion silent film a fairy grants two dolls, Mary and Gretel life but tells them not to pick the flowers in the forest. Meanwhile some gnomes take a keg back to their cave followed by a white rabbit. Mary and Gretel come upon Rip Van Winkle and tickle his nose with a branch he wakes up but then goes back to sleep. They follow a squirrel to the mouth of the gnomes cave. Inside the gnomes start playing bowling and drinking ale from the keg. The rabbit now in the cave too starts sneaking drinks from the keg when the gnomes aren’t looking. This film was released in 1916.