The Taking of Luke McVane 1915
Luke McVane (William S. Hart) shoots a card-cheat in self-defense and has to make a run for it before the town lynch him.
Luke McVane (William S. Hart) shoots a card-cheat in self-defense and has to make a run for it before the town lynch him.
D'Artagnan leaves home travelling to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although D'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age: Athos, Porthos and Aramis and gets involved in affairs of the state and court.
Jim Houston, the "Shootin' Iron" Parson, comes to Barren Gulch to reform the morals of the frontier community.
When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.
Mr. Burns, a student of Theosophy, has a dream in the hammock. He sees himself, his wife and her admirer, in a previous existence.
Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.
Jerry Ross dresses as a boy and sells newspapers to make money on the street corner. As the result of a chance meeting with Frank Girard, who is interested in the "Big Brother Movement," Jerry is invited to Girard's farm in the country. Later she is sent to a coeducational institution where she assumes the dress and manners of a girl once more.
James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.
An narcissistic woman with the ability to charm, Leila Aradella reaps delight from preying upon weak men. Her first victim is John Morton, a talented lawyer, whom she ruins both morally and financially. Her second victim, Rex Walden, the generous son of society matron Mrs. Walden, becomes her complete slave. Mrs. Walden sends her elder son Franklin to try to dissuade Leila from toying with Rex's affections. Franklin, however, also falls under Leila's spell, and Rex is driven to suicide by her callous behavior. Desperate, Mrs. Walden enlists Adele Harley, a girl of strong moral character, to fight Leila for Franklin's affections. Adele's determined victory causes Leila to lose her confidence, and in a drunken state, she cuts her own face with a shard from her shattered mirror. Permanently disfigured, Leila ends a broken and lonely woman.
Dr. Robert Lowndes of the British army practices in a small Indian outpost during a cholera epidemic, and to ease his fever, uses morphine. He becomes an addict, but his sweetheart, Betty Archer, makes him promise to reform. Another of Betty's suitors, however, Captain Guy Douglas, uses drugs to tempt Lowndes.
Antone Tojetti and his pretty daughter, Maria, are street musicians in Venice. John Strom, an American millionaire, makes love to Maria, and finally persuades her to leave for America with him. Her father sees them just as they are leaving, but she will not return to him. Two years later, Maria, abandoned by John, returns to her father, who has now become a guide in the mountains. She dies and Antone vows vengeance. Some time after this, John Strom, now married, is touring Europe and he and his party seek a guide to visit Vesuvius. Antone takes the position. John not recognizing in him the father of Maria.
A "scientific detective" story about the attempted murder of a wealthy New Yorker in his mountain lodge is framed with a satire of Hollywood as the writer of the story comically tries to get the script read and accepted by a studio.
Amos Dyer receives word from Washington that there are wireless messages being transmitted from a point in Oregon to foreign battleships off the Pacific Coast. Dyer, the Secret Service representative on the Coast, sets out with his assistant, Calhoun. He arrives, assumes the disguise of an invalid being wheeled about in a chair by his assistant and interviews the regular wireless operator at that point. The suspicions of the Secret Service Department are verified.
Dr. Dudley Duprez is a well-known Louisiana physician. His beautiful but wayward niece, Rose Duprez, is abducted by Paul Crenshaw, a friend of the doctor, and to prevent her shame from becoming known, Rose kills herself. Dr. Duprez learns her secret and determines to make Crenshaw expiate his crime. While traveling on a Mississippi River steamer, the doctor wins Mercedes, a beautiful slave, at cards. He takes her home and, passing her off as a distant relative, arranges it so that Crenshaw falls in love with the girl.
Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rage, he kidnaps the woman most responsible and makes her his slave in a desert hideaway.
A railroad plant is set afire by striking workmen, and the firemen are prevented from extinguishing the flames by the infuriated strikers. The troops are called out and martial law prevails.
A small town marshal’s secret past as an outlaw comes back to haunt him when an old associate shows up and threatens to expose his former dark deeds.
William S. Hart directs and stars in a film that is a typical Western of the era. He plays Jim, a prospector who lands in the town of Broken Hope, and the name pretty much describes its inhabitants. Jim meets and falls in love with Jennie (Margery Wilson), whose father (Walt Whitman) is gravely ill. Jim rounds up a reluctant doctor from another town to tend to the old man, but he dies anyway. The doctor, however, gains Jennie's trust and she runs off with him. Only then does he tell her he's already married. She leaves immediately, but is too proud to go home so she finds work as a dance hall girl at Tacoma Jake's saloon. Jim, meanwhile, finds gold near Broken Hope, which raises its inhabitants' attitudes considerably. But the bad element is still there, and Jim is chasing after a group of kidnappers when he enters Tacoma Jake's saloon and sees Jennie. Jim not only overcomes the bad guys, he gets the girl, too.
Fred Martin is a Southern spy. A northern dispatch bearer is captured, the signature to his messages is forged, and Martin is sent on the dangerous mission of luring the Northern troops into an ambush. He accomplishes this and a terrible battle results, in which the Federals are driven back. The work of Martin is so damaging to the North that plans are laid for his capture, and John Bruce, a secret service man, is assigned to the task.
Jim and Molly are set to get married when Molly finds out about her fiancé's criminal past. Bill Carey weasels his way into Molly's heart in the interim, eager to relieve her of her savings.