Carlyle Blackwell

A compilation of thirteen rare silent films digitized by the Library of Congress, selected for the 2022 Domitor conference theme “Copy/Rights and Early Cinema.” Drawn from nitrate and safety film, the program spans comedies, trick films, and dramas exploring censorship, invention, adaptation, and social rights. Titles include: Pruning the Movies (Nestor, 1914); Imperial Japanese Dance (Edison, 1894); Early Edison Camera Tests (Edison, c.1890s); Censorship and its Absurdities (Edison, 1915); In Wrong (Crystal, 1914, dir. Phillips Smalley); Tillie’s Tomato Surprise (Lubin, 1915, dir. Howell Hansell); Indian Land Grab (Champion, 1910); The Stolen Play (Falcon Features, 1917, dir. Harry Harvey); And the Villain Still Pursued Her (Vitagraph, 1906, dir. J. Stuart Blackton); The Doll’s Revenge (Hepworth, 1907, dir. Lewin Fitzhamon); The Disintegrated Convict (Vitagraph, 1907); The Mexican Joan of Arc (Kalem, 1911, dir. Kenean Buel); and Fads and Fashions of 1900 (U.S., 1940s).

Open details →

"A wealthy young man, through losing the bulk of his fortune, goes to Canada, where he encounters and loves the daughter of the scoundrel lawyer who has robbed him." (Synopsis from The Bioscope, November 1930.)

Open details →

A Canadian returns to find his fiancée is married and schemes revenge.

Open details →

'International spy seeks documents hidden in old inn.' (British Film Catalogue)

Open details →

One of the last of the silent Sherlock films.

Open details →

A criminal organizes train crashes to discredit the railway in favor of a rival bus company. The stunts in this film were groundbreaking for 1920s British cinema. A scene which has been described as "the most spectacular rail crash in cinema history" was recorded by 22 cameras.

Open details →

'1820. Officer frames colleague when gambler forces him to steal secrets.' (British Film Catalogue)

Open details →

A marooned sailor and his stowaway sister-in-law are rescued by her husband.

Open details →

Mr. Blackwell discovers a relic that informs him about Blythe (as Ayesha, or "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed"), who loved his father and others in the ancestral line. Blackwell accompanies pal Heinrich George and handyman Tom Reynolds to Arabia.

Open details →

Open details →

A European adventurer tries to steal from an ancient Egyptian tomb, only to become afflicted by a mysterious curse...

Open details →

A jilted rich man poses as a tramp and falls in love with an orphan.

Open details →

Open details →

A captain saves a kidnapped magnate from a nursing home run by foreign agents.

Open details →

A love triangle drama, based on a novel by Robert W. Chambers, who is better-known for weird fiction (which is not noticeable in this story.)

Open details →

Although he loves his childhood playmate Marcelle Riley, Luke Halliday, whose father made his fortune as an Arizona miner, becomes engaged to Eleanor Steele, a New York high society girl. When Scar Norton arrives from Arizona and reveals that Luke's mother was Indian, Luke is so traumatized that he breaks off their engagement and ventures west to live among his mother's people.

Open details →

Lucille Vale is in love with struggling architect Paul Arden, but her mother believes that Allen Granat is a more suitable match. Lucille's mother prevails, and Lucille leaves Paul a note in their secret hiding place saying that she is going to marry Allen. Paul is injured when thrown from a horse and does not receive the note. He is nursed back to health in the home of entomologist Thomas Wiggan, whose son Johnnie is in love with Marion Vale, Lucille's younger sister. Two years later, Lucille and Allen return to the estate, very much in love, and engage Paul's services. The note is found, still waiting in the secret hiding place. After many complications, and with the help of her friend Suzanne Russell, Lucille recovers the possibly incriminating note.

Open details →

Open details →

Open details →

The son of an American mine owner, traveling under the name of Charles Conant, tries to enter England in 1916 after masquerading as a muleteer, but the captain of his ship, suspicious when he sees Charles look through a spyglass, plans to take him back to the United States. Charles escapes and visits his relative, Lady Dartridge, where he falls in love with her daughter, Lady Joan Templar, who is loved by her cousin, the chief constable, George Templar. Templar, suspicious of Charles' manner and unexplainable meetings and activities, wants to arrest him as a spy.

Open details →

Kid Kelly, a gangster in New York's Lower East Side, attempts to rob Goldberg's millinery store. When the police arrive, Flo Haines, who had come to the building to look at an apartment, hides. When the police find her, they charge her with the crime, but the Kid turns himself over to the law instead. After his release, he again meets Flo, who works in an artificial-flower factory by day and at Reverend Roberts' relief mission by night. The Kid soon falls in love with Flo, and his jealous sweetheart Mamie tricks her into coming to her apartment, where she drugs her and turns her over to Joe Carelli, the flower factory's lustful owner. The Kid saves Flo, but when Carelli is found murdered the next day, he is arrested for the crime. The confession of Annie, who had stabbed Carelli in a jealous rage, frees The Kid, who reforms himself and marries Flo.

Open details →

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.

Open details →

Pampered Frederic "Freddy" Pritchard, warned by his father that he must work or be disinherited, learns how to crack safes to help his girlfriend Gloria Nevins, whose villainous uncle holds security for the family jewels, as well as the right to vote on the disposition of the Nevins Motor Works. After Freddy steals the papers with the aid of his valet Smithson, Gloria's uncle locks him in a warehouse to prevent him from attending a crucial stockholders' meeting. Freddy escapes and saves the factory for Mrs. Nevins, who gives him power of proxy. Pritchard, Sr., pleased with his son, consents to Freddy's marriage to Gloria.

Open details →

The girlfriend of the son of a rich railroad tycoon, attempts to help him escape the clutches of his well-meaning, but over-bearing mother whilst encouraging her own father not to give up on his business, by instigating a staged kidnapping and black-mailing scheme.

Open details →

Heading to America after finding themselves destitute following their father's death, Charles de la Fontaine, the Marquis d'Aubeterre and his sister Helen secures a position in the home of Lathrop, a millionaire thanks to the Countess d'Este. He instantly falls in love with Lathrop's pretty daughter Marian, but she fears he is a fortune hunter and becomes engaged to the wealthy Rudolph Miller. Charles tells her he would only marry her when the two are equally wealthy. Charles then secretly backs Marian's brother Frank in a successful financial venture, making both rich. Discovering Rudolph is unfaithful and with the "golden wall" of wealth that had separated them now obliterated, Marian and Charles wed.

Open details →

Helene, who dances in a Greenwich Village cabaret accompanied on the violin by her grandfather, loses her job after his death. She then is hired as a portrait model by four artists--Jaffrey Darrel, Ned Lorrimer, Dick Turner and Stanley Sargent--all of whom become fascinated with her. Helene leaves the Village when Ned's jealousy disrupts the camaraderie of the quartet and becomes a stage star. Meanwhile, all of the artists have attained success except Jaffrey, who refuses to taint his art with commercialism.

Open details →

A renegade American and his innocent daughter become entangled in the snares of German secret agents during the First World War.

Open details →

Charles Trevor is a young chap just out of college, who is put to work on a daily newspaper and at once starts to lead a life of adventure and romance. A German spy and a maiden in distress cross his path the first day and, before the end of the story, he has landed a big scoop for his paper, put the German in jail and married the girl.

Open details →

Football star Jack Christie accompanies his college roommate Victor Borden to France, where the latter becomes attached to gangster's daughter Lisette. He is injured trying to save her from a forced marriage, and while he is confined in a hospital, he reveals to Jack that he is actually Prince of Wallarya, a small country in the Balkans. Because Prince Ferdinand, who wishes to seize the throne, has convinced the King of Terresta to declare war on Wallarya, Jack agrees to take Victor's place temporarily at the head of the army. Posing as the prince, Jack foils Ferdinand's attempts to assassinate him and then prevents war by agreeing to marry the king of Terresta's daughter Diana. Victor wires Jack that he plans to settle permanently in America with Lisette, leaving the football hero to rule Wallarya with his bride.

Open details →

During the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr are both courting beautiful Margaret Moncrieffe. Fast-forward several years and they again find themselves on opposite sides, this time about compensation for the properties of Tories--colonists who sided with the British--during the war. Hamilton falls for Maria Reynolds, who it turns out is secretly the wife of prominent pawnbroker Jacob Clingman, a friend of Burr's. The pair conspire to destroy Hamilton, who is now Secretary of the Treasury and married to the daughter of a prominent army general, by making public several love letters Hamilton had written to Mrs. Reynolds.

Open details →

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.

Open details →

Open details →

William Lewis accidentally shoots a policeman while breaking into a house as a prank with his friends. His friend Sid falsely accuses him of the shooting, and Will escapes, eventually meeting and marrying Alice. Later, Sid blackmails Will into helping him rob a bank, leading to a chain of events that ultimately results in Will's imprisonment and eventual tragic death.

Open details →

Madge Black witnesses her best friend Nan Westland, kissing her husband, successful lawyer Jeffrey Arnold Black, a successful lawyer, and orders Nan from the house. Angered by her refusal to let him explain, Jeffrey leaves his wife and son David, Jeffrey meets Nan on a westbound train. Though he does not love her he offers his protection and the next year they welcome a son, William. Nan pleads with him to divorce Madge and marry her for the sake of their son, but he will refuse. Distraught, she marries Ben Richardson, a client of Jeffrey's client, leaving their son behind. Twenty years pass with David becoming a responsible adult while half-brother William now known as “Rodeo” becomes the leader of a lawless band of robbers. Meanwhile Ben Richardson and Nan have become owners of Chanceland, a gambling-house in Colorado and it is there that things reach a climax between the near identical brothers.

Open details →

Young minister Brand Cameron meets stage star Adrienne Durant at her father's humble country home. Believing her an innocent country girl, Cameron falls in love with her. She confesses her racier life and returns to New York. Cameron follows, unable to give Adrienne up, his parishioners denounce him and force him to resign. He departs, accepting a post in a tough lumber camp while Adrienne accepts the charge of a school for poor children. Later Faro Kate falsely accuses Cameron of fathering her child enraging the lumbermen who set fire to his church. Discovering Kate's baby is trapped inside Cameron risks his like to save the child causing Kate to retract her lie and Adrienne comes to join him in his new ministry.

Open details →

A clairvoyant warns divorcée Adrienne Van Couver to beware of Robert Warren, whom she has spurned. The warning comes true after Adrienne's ex-husband, John Dean, meets Warren, an old friend, and tells him the story of his marriage to Adrienne. He tells how her frivolity and malice caused both the death of their only child, and after their divorce John’s romance with Lorraine Barkley who left him for lawyer Henry Armstrong. Enraged by Adrienne's treachery, Warren goes to her apartment and kills her. Dean arrives after Warren has fled and is arrested for the murder. Believing that Dean is innocent, Lorraine persuades Armstrong to defend him. After a last-minute confession by John is cleared.

Open details →

"A wealthy young man, through losing the bulk of his fortune, goes to Canada, where he encounters and loves the daughter of the scoundrel lawyer who has robbed him." (Synopsis from The Bioscope, November 1930.)

Open details →

A Canadian returns to find his fiancée is married and schemes revenge.

Open details →

'1820. Officer frames colleague when gambler forces him to steal secrets.' (British Film Catalogue)

Open details →

A chauffeur becomes an officer and later cares for his master's widow and child.

Open details →

London. A mysterious serial killer brutally murders young blond women by stalking them in the night fog. One foggy, sinister night, a young man who claims his name is Jonathan Drew arrives at the guest house run by the Bunting family and rents a room.

Open details →

A jilted rich man poses as a tramp and falls in love with an orphan.

Open details →