Author Archive: Retro

Sam Jones is a laborer, a wielder of the white-wash brush. He is in love with Lindy Williams. Having saved up quite a little money, Sam buys some swell second-hand clothes and goes to Lindy’s home. Lindy’s people are quite prosperous, her father having retired from his job as “Public Porter.” Lindy is a coquettish ebony beauty and trifles with Sam’s affections. She plays Sam against Bill Johnson and finally in despair Sam retires from the field. Walking along the road beaten and despondent, Sain finds a lot of money. Now, he vows, he will show them! He buys full dress clothes and other swell duds, an automobile and jewelry. Like a peacock he begins parading himself before Lindy and his rival, and, as can be expected, coquettish Lindy transfers her affections to him. Sam makes hay while the sun shines and proposes to Lindy and basks in her smiles. After his acceptance he sends [...]

Two girls and their brother live at the little homestead left them by their late father. The brother, having disposed of a portion of the small estate, comes home with the money to show it to his sisters, telling them that they may now enjoy a few of the luxuries of life. As it would be after banking hours before he could get to the village, he places the money in the safe and returns to his office, some distance away. He has hardly departed when the maid, a slattern individual, who has seen him put the money in the safe, attempts to get it. Failing to work the combination, she calls up an erstwhile friend requesting him to come and help her. While these two work, the sisters are locked in the sitting-room, terrorized in a most unique way. The brother, however, arrives after a series of tantalizing delays and apprehends the criminals just [...]

Snow White is a motherless princess, who arouses the jealousy and hatred of Mary Jane, her mother’s former lady-in-waiting, who is the ugliest woman in the kingdom, but aspires to the throne. She gives her heart to the witch, Hex, in return for which she becomes beautiful and wins the love of the king. While hunting, the king falls from his horse and is killed, leaving Mary Jane, who has been rechristened Brangomar, upon the throne. Brangomar forces Snow White to work in the kitchen and takes her lovely clothes away from her. When Snow White accidentally meets a young hunter she becomes interested in him and he is fascinated, though neither has any idea who the other is. So they are dumbfounded when he comes to Snow White’s castle and presents a letter to the queen, asking for the hand of Snow White, for he is the Prince Florimund, who has been sent to [...]

Shows a large open barge loaded with people of every nationality, disembarking at Ellis Island, N. Y. A most interesting and typical scene.

An early silent version of Shakespeare’s classic comedy of unrequited love and gender bending.

A fine magician of the Royal Court materialises an elegant attire from a transparent glass container, and then, a refined dandy appears, as an ornate palanquin is summoned. Now, what does the illusionist have in mind?

This silent melodrama is set against the 1840s westward migration of the Mormons. Dora, a young woman, and her family are saved from an Indian attack by a Mormon community traveling to Utah. They join the wagon train. Dora is pursued by two men, one a recent convert, the other a scheming elder with a stable of wives. The Mormon elder wants her in his harem. When the mother kills herself from revulsion toward polygamy, the daughter must consider her own future and the man she loves. One of Mae Murray’s few surviving films, this was intended by Robert Leonard to be a thoughtful drama about the goods and evils of Mormonism, but today it is generally considered pure anti-Mormon propaganda.

A top race-car driver leaves the sport to get married and settle down, because his new wife doesn’t want him to race anymore. However, not long afterwards his wife takes their infant son and leaves him to go to San Francisco. The husband gets word that his son is seriously ill in San Francisco, but he has no way to get there. Just in the nick of time, however, the racer’s father-in-law just happens to have developed a new car for a cross-country race–to San Francisco!