World Film

When his wife Grace inherits her father's stock, John Miller, the president of the Western Power and Development Company, becomes a millionaire and moves to New York with his family. Beset by business problems, Miller pays little attention to his wife, and Grace, feeling neglected, takes up with a bohemian set. Among her new acquaintances she meets Stuart Mordant, the attorney for Thomas Hurd, a business rival of Miller's. Grace seeks refuge from loneliness in Mordant, who makes a bargain with Hurd to gain control of her husband's company for half a million dollars.

Cardinal Mercier protects the altar of his church from desecration when German forces invade the Belgian city of Louvain during World War I. Although the soldiers commit widespread atrocities, the cardinal does his best to protect the townspeople.

Heiress Sybil Drew is told by her Aunt Annabelle she must earn her own living for a year or be disinherited. Setting out for New York she finds many adventures and toils, including being mistaken for a thief before true love and success come her way.

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.

This is a visualization of the life of patriot Nathan Hale which is based on a play by Clyde Fitch. Robert Warwick plays Nathan (and does a fine job) and Gail Kane the girl whom he loves (Alice Adams).

Silent film drama...

A 1917 silent film drama

The first screen adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel to star a black man in the title role.

The story of the rise and fall of Rasputin, the so-called "mad monk" who dominated the court of the Russian czar in the period prior to the Russian revolution.

In order to help her poverty-stricken family, Jonnie Consadine, a strong-willed young woman from the Blue Ridge Mountains, comes to the city and takes a job in a mill, while her uncle, Pros Passmore, continues his endless search for a lost silver mine.

Madge Evans, World Film Corp. juvenile star, is sent to her Quaker grandparents, Timothy and Tabitha Mendenhall, when her father and mother go to serve in World War I. After bidding farewell to the World stars, Madge goes to her grandparent's home where she experiences stern discipline.

John Keefe, a gambler, shoots and kills Robert Barrington in an argument over a card game. Keefe steals Barrington's papers and forges a bill of sale to himself for Barrington's stable of race horses back east. The stable includes the prize filly, Wildfire. Meanwhile, Barrington's daughters, Henrietta and Myrtle, are becoming worried about their father's long absence in the West. John Garrison, the sheriff of the town in which Barrington was killed, goes East to investigate. He suspects Keefe (now called John Duffy) and begins to build a case, causing Henrietta to become suspicious. Keefe, realizing that the game is almost up, tries to get Wildfire's jockey to throw the big race, but Henrietta saves the day and Wildfire wins.

Once a wealthy man, John Pollard now resides in reduced circumstances in Washington, D.C. with his pretty daughter Polly. Despite the poor conditions, Polly manages to move in good social circles and meets multimillionaire George Singleton and Lieutenant Richard Travers, at the home of Mrs. Madison Derwent. Also at the Derwent mansion is Baron Wootchi, a Japanese diplomat trying to obtain valuable plans that are in Travers' possession. Old Pollard owes Singleton money and tries to persuade his daughter to marry the millionaire. Polly refuses and accepts Travers' proposal instead, until her father informs her that Singleton can seize their house unless Polly pays off the debt by becoming his wife. Meanwhile the Baron offers Pollard $50,000 to produce the documents in Travers' keeping. Pollard steals the papers and goes to a roadhouse to turn them over to the Baron. Discovering the theft, Polly follows and confronts the Baron at gunpoint.

Dick Vernon (Montagu Love) lives in New York but hasn't succumbed to the city's vices. When his vacation comes up, he goes to Boonsburg to visit his uncle (George Bunny) and aunts (Emily Fitzroy and Annie Laurie Spence). He finds small-town life far more wicked than living in the big city. A theatrical troupe comes to town, and Dick finds his match in chorus girl Mazie Chateaux (Helen Weir). Dick's uncle inherits a huge sum of money and insists that his nephew take him to New York and entertain him. Dick, knowing what his uncle expects, takes him through a number of wild adventures, but he is happy to put all that behind him and settle down with Mazie. (Janiss Garza)

Grace Culver's sharp tongue, has garnered her with the nicknamed "The Wasp." A spirited disagreement with her canning magnate father, John Culver, results from Grace's refusal to marry Kane Putnam, her father's business partner, and she orders her new chauffeur, Tim Purcell, to take her and her maid Miller on a drive. On their return, they are captured by Brazsos, a German spy who plans to blow up her father's munitions factory. Grace learns of the hidden tunnel Brazsos has excavated to the factory, and as Miller escapes to alert the police, Grace unties the chauffeur and leads him to the tunnel. When the bomb explodes prematurely, Grace and Tim become trapped, and facing death, they confess their mutual love. The two are rescued, after which Grace discovers that Tim actually is wealthy Yale football star Harry Cortland, a revelation that delights her father.

Author Noel Graham goes to the little village of Mondon, where his ancestors lived, for solitude to write. While searching for a lost puppy, Noel meets Rhona Allerton, who is visiting her guardian, Lewis Moffat, a writer in his declining years. Realizing that he needs inspiration to write a passionate romance, Moffat, with the help of old Benson, a former derelict now in his service, encourages the blossoming love affair between Rhona and Noel, while planning to destroy it later and analyze their suffering.

Tillie and her neighbor Mr. Pipkins are both distraught over their respective marriages. One day, they sneak off to have a lively time at Coney Island. They flee the park together just as their spouses come to find them. After a chase, each is rescued from the ocean and reconcile with their respective spouses.

Vesta Wheatley is the daughter of a Virginia physician; John Randolph is a New Yorker who buys a tract of land from her father. Vesta and John fall in love, get married, and move to New York. They are followed, however, by a persistent old flame of Vesta's, Dick Mortimer. He tracks her down to a mountain cabin, where she is alone. A burglar breaks in on the two, and Dick is killed trying to protect Vesta. The burglar blackmails Vesta until she finally becomes desperate and shoots him in her own home.

A feisty, independent young woman, Damophilia Illington ("Phil" for short, hence the title), the daughter of a progressive university professor, is devastated by the sudden death of her father. The town's banker, an arrogant stuffed shirt, wants to marry Phil and has himself declared her guardian. Not wanting to marry him, she quickly leaves town and lands a job at a nearby university as an assistant to a professor of Greek literature (an area in which her father trained her) who is bitter and resentful after the breakup of his engagement to a woman who, it turned out, had been lying to him. "Phil", however, is determined to win him over.

Hugh Eltinge, a struggling artist, and Mark Dunbar, a genius of the pen, whom the world has as yet failed to reward, live together in MacDougal Alley. Across the hall is Doris Golden, a reporter on the Evening Star, who enthuses over the work of both. Mark's novel is sold and Hugh and Doris see a new Mark. Mark begs Hugh to allow him to stake him until his pictures sell, but pleasure in his new clothes and new popularity dwindle as he sees his old friends will not profit by them. A happy idea strikes him and he buys all of Hugh's paintings on exhibition at a local dealer, requesting that his name be not mentioned.