Fascination

The Silent Mystery

November 1918 •English

While visiting Egypt, Mrs. Graham steals a famous jewel called "The Eye of the World" from a mummy's sarcophagus and returns to the United States, planning to use the gem as collateral for a loan. Kah, the priestess in charge of protecting the tombs of Egyptian nobility, is soon on her trail , determined to retrieve the gem. Mrs. Graham's lovely daughter, Betty, agrees to marry a suitor for money to prop up her father's failing business. When the bridegroom is murdered on the couple's wedding night, and the body disappears, Phil Kelly decides to lend a hand in solving the crimes.

The Magician

October 1926 •English

A young woman, Margaret Dauncey, is caught between the forces of a charlatan magician, Oliver Haddo, whom she is unable to resist, and the love of a handsome surgeon, Arthur Burdon, who has saved her from being a helpless cripple by performing a delicate operation on her spine.

Moral Fibre

September 1921 •English

Jared Wolcott, storekeeper in a small country town, lives with his young sister, Marion. He succumbs to the flirtations of a Mrs. Elmore from a wealthy summer resort, and when he proposes and learns she is married he commits suicide. Marion vows to avenge her brother, and years later, as a successful illustrator in New York, she is engaged to illustrate George Elmore's latest novel. At the Elmore country home, she leads Mrs. Elmore to believe she has won her husband's love, although she is romantically involved with John Corliss. The revelation that Corliss is Mrs. Elmore's brother leads her to forgo her revenge, and disclosing her identity to the family, she leaves. Corliss follows, and they are united.

Destiny

October 1921 •German

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and is sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman finds a mystic entrance and is met by Death, who tells her three separate stories set in exotic locales, all involving circumstances similar to hers.

The Life of Moses

December 1909 •English

Released in five parts (The Persecution of the Children of Israel by the Egyptians, Forty Years in the Land of Midian, The Plagues of Egypt and the Deliverance of the Hebrews, The Victory of Israel, The Promised Land), 4 December 1909 to 19 February 1910. A Vitagraph advertisement in the Moving Picture World (31 Dec. 1909) refers to The Life of Moses as a "Biblical Film-de-Luxe". It is preserved in the Library of Congress collection.

The Uphill Path

October 1918 •English

Ruth Travers, the young niece and ward of Howard Mason, elopes with Chadwick Blake to escape the advances of Gilbert Hilton, whom her uncle wants to force upon her to cover his embezzlement of Ruth's small fortune. She discovers too late that Blake already has a wife but makes the best of the situation until Mason's death, just after he has made a lucky gambling coup, leaves her a little money. Determined to escape, she goes to a small town where minister Daniel Clarkson becomes interested in her. Because James Lawton had sought marriage between Clarkson and his daughter, when Blake turns up, and Lawton learns the story, he denounces Ruth to the minister. When Clarkson learns the truth, he forgives Ruth and, knowing that he will lose his position, he enlists, promising to return and marry her when the war is over.

Marriage

November 1918 •English

Neglected by her workaholic husband Jack, Eileen Spencer begins an affair with novelist Carter Ballantyne. Their planned elopement is halted when Eileen learns that Jack has lost both his money and his eyesight, and she feels compelled to return to care for him. With her friend Dolly Page, Eileen cheats at cards amassing a fortune to send Jack to France for treatment. Carter reappears, threatening to expose her unless she submits to him. Intending merely to reason with Carter, Eileen gives him a key to her apartment, but Jack returns home unexpectedly and finds him there. At her birthday dinner, Eileen, in anticipation of Carter's plan to expose her publicly, confesses her guilt, whereas her husband and her friends forgive her.

That Woman

December 1922 •English

When a Broadway actress marries the son of a wealthy New York family, his father does everything he can to try and split the couple up. Eventually convinced of her worthiness, he changes his mind and gives them his blessing.

Too Many Kisses

January 1925 •English

Wanting his son to get away from his many girlfriends and buckle down to work, the New York industrialist father of a playboy sends him to an obscure village in Spain to find samples of a rare mineral. When the son gets to Spain, he runs afoul of the local police chief - who has a secret that he tries to keep the young man from discovering.

The Unknown

May 1927 •English

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

The Unholy Three

July 1925 •English

Three sideshow performers form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" - a ventriloquist, midget, and strongman working together to commit a series of robberies.

West of Zanzibar

November 1928 •English

A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.

Laugh, Clown, Laugh

April 1928 •English

A despairing clown suffering a broken heart and a self-indulgent count who uncontrollably laughs learn to help each other with their problems, but both fall in love with the same young woman.

A Blind Bargain

December 1922 •English

Chaney plays two roles: mad scientist Arthur Lamb and Lamb's "experiment", known only as the Ape Man. This hideous creature was the result of Lamb's attempts to transplant animal glands into human beings. A lost film.

The Penalty

August 1920 •English

Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal, and eventually mob leader of the San Francisco underworld.

He Who Gets Slapped

December 1924 •English

After a baron steals his scientific discoveries, runs away with his wife, and slaps him in public, a man joins a Parisian circus sideshow as a clown whose act consists of being slapped repeatedly and becomes infatuated with a showgirl colleague whose father intends to marry her off to the baron.

The Wolf Man

February 1924 •English

Gerald Stanley (John Gilbert) is an English gentleman who is engaged to Beatrice Joyce (Alma Frances). But Stanley's personality changes whenever he drinks, and his brother (who also loves Beatrice) uses this to his advantage.

Dante's Inferno

March 1911 •

A two-reel adaptation of Dante Alighieri's Inferno from the Divine Comedy by Helios Film. It is less well-known than the five-reel feature produced the same year by Milano Films, but it was released earlier in 1911.

The Road to France

October 1918 •English

Tom Whitney, well connected but a social derelict because of his weakness for drink, is released from the draft because of an old football Injury, but a policeman persuades him that he can still do his bit in the shipyards. He takes a job in the yard owned by the man to whose daughter he was engaged in happier times. Three German propagandists seek to foment a strike to delay the work, and largely through Tom's efforts the plan goes amiss and the strike is called off. Rehabilitated by work, the launching of The Liberty is a forecast of his own rebirth.

Die Geliebte seiner Hoheit

January 1929 •German