Author Archive: Retro

A young couple struggle to get ahead, the wife always assuaging the troubles of her melancholy husband. As he climbs the ladder of success, he abandons the homely values and takes up with another woman. His wife leaves him, returning to her mother’s home where she bears a child. When the husband is abandoned by his concubine, remorse drives him to find his wife…

Dir. D.W. Griffith. Humble fisherman Enoch marries sweet Annie Lee. He becomes a sailor to earn more for his growing family. After a stormy shipwreck, Enoch swims to the shore of a deserted island. Annie awaits in vain for his return. 

George Peabody is a young man who has been giving free rein to his inclinations, the principal one being drink. One might have concluded he was lost, but there was the chance which the hand of Providence always bestows in the person of pretty little Ruth King, who had secretly loved George since their childhood days. She succeeds in persuading him from his reckless life, and he determines to cut off from his old loose companions by going out West and making a man of himself. Bidding Ruth and her mother good-bye, he realizes that he loves his little preserver and promises to return worthy of her love and confidence. They plight their troth with their first kiss and a heart shaped locket, which Ruth wears, she breaking it in two, giving George one side while she retains the other, which symbolized the reunion of their hearts with his return. George is fortunate to strike [...]

George Forrester has suffered the loss of his beloved wife, the mother of his little ten-year-old child. The child is forced to become his little housekeeper, while Forrester secures work at the pigeon farm. While thus employed, he meets a former sweetheart and renews his attentions, feeling that she might prove a second mother to his child; but no, on serious consideration he realizes that he could not meet the wants of a second wife, as he finds that her tastes are extravagant, and do his duty to his child, hence he determines to sacrifice his own happiness for the sake of his child, sending her off to school that she may rise above her present environment, while he toils to make ends meet. Several years later we find the girl returning from school, having grown to young womanhood. She is surprised and grieved to see such a change in her father. As she views [...]

A primitive tribe are attacked by apemen and menaced by various prehistoric monsters.

Billy witnesses two tramps accidentally kill someone during a robbery. The tramps lock him up and decide that he must be killed, too.

A poor girl is secretly in love with a wealthy young planter. During the Civil War she helps him escape capture by Union soldiers. After the war, with his fortune gone, she confesses that she loves him.

Alfred Lucas, an industrious wood carver, is a dutiful husband and loving father. The happy little family of father, mother and two girl children, one six and the other eight, are seen enjoying their morning meal prior to his departure for work. A fond adieu, and Lucas is on his way. Assiduously working at his bench he strongly contrasts the drones, whose faces are noticeably seared with the lines of dissipation. At noontime luncheon is served, and kettles of beer are brought in by some. Lucas becomes a butt of ridicule on account of his refusal to imbibe, and after a deal of persuasion is prevailed upon to take just one drink. This was his undoing, for he likes the taste, and when work is over it takes but mild encouraging to make him yield to the invitation to go to the saloon. Several drinks make him forgetful of the family, anxiously waiting for him [...]

Arthur Rogers had been in the worst of luck for some time. Honest and industrious by nature, he was in the depths of despair at the sight of the misery his little family of a wife and two small children were subjected to. They were, in fact, on the verge of starvation. With crushed spirit, he seeks solace in drink, and in a drunken condition feels his wife would be better off without him, so he leaves. Immediately after his departure a lawyer calls to apprise Mrs. Rogers that her aunt’s estate, long in litigation, has been settled, leaving her a moderate fortune. This indeed is pleasant news, but if it had only come before her husband’s rash act. However, they remove to new quarters, and the children, at least, are happy. It is the night before Christmas, and they are ready for bed. They want to wait for Santa Claus, but mamma tells them [...]