The Lightning Raider

Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.

Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.

When a prominent official is murdered at a banquet honoring Charle Chan, the detective and son Lee team up to expose an opium-smuggling ring.

When a friend of Charlie's is found kicked to death by his own race horse on board a Honolulu-bound liner, the detective discovers foul play and uncovers an international gambling ring.

A fog-shrouded house provides the setting for a weekend party prank gone wrong and the resulting murder being blamed on an innocent man.

The Merediths, in reality much in love, have quarreled and agreed to separate but cannot agree as to the disposition of their little daughter Beryl. All this is opportune for the plans of Spider, a notorious kidnapper and his gang, who plot to steal Beryl while her nurse flirts in the park with one of their pals.

Elaine Dodge is the beautiful young daughter of Taylor Dodge, president of the Consolidated Insurance Company. When Mr Dodge is murdered by a mysterious cloaked figure known only as the Clutching Hand, Elaine enlists the aid of Craig Kennedy to unmask the killer

A Secret Service agent seeks his missing brother in Africa, and finds his mission complicated by ivory thieves, a girl with a mysterious past, and a troublesome gorilla.

The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring the actress Pearl White playing the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel-in-distress, although viewers will find her character more resourceful and less helpless than the classic 'damsel' stereotype. Nine episodes (from a condensed 1916 re-release) survive to this day.

Film serial.

One of many Pearl White silent action movie serials. CHAPTER TITLES: 1. The Serpent Sign; 2. The Cryptic Ring; 3. The Watching Eye; 4. The Vengeance Of Wu Fang; 5. The Saving Circles; 6. Spontaneous Combustion; 7. The Ear in the Wall; 8. The Opium Smugglers; 9. The Tell-Tale Heart; 10. Shadows Of War.

Various groups of people, both well-intentioned and otherwise, search for a buried treasure that is buried underneath a skyscraper.

Con artists use a member of a European royal family to swindle a major jewelry company.

A young heiress of an American gun factory is threatened by a masked man after her father was murdered. This criminal might be a member of her family or a German agent, who wants to get information about the factory's products, perhaps his mystery has a combined solution - we will probably never know...

Only Episode 7, "The Hooded Helper," of this 20-Episode Serial is known to survive. All other episodes are believed to be lost.

Shot on location in Paris, Monte Carlo and the Riviera with both American and French actors. When Matthew Versigny discovers that the jewels his diamond company has been buying are fake, he travels to Europe to track down the counterfeiter. With him are his sister, Marguerite and her sweetheart, Paul Bernac, who is an agent in the French Secret Service.

Adventures of an American Secret Service-girl in search of an important German secret during the war. Chapters: [1] “The Great Secret,”; [2] “Marked for Death,”; [3] “The Gas Chamber,”; [4] “Below the Waterline,”; [5] “The Acid Bath,”; [6] “The Unknown,”; [7] “The Betrayal,”; [8] “A Crippled Hand,”; [9] “Woes of Deceit,”; [10] “The Inn of Dread,”; [11] “The Death Studio,”; [12] “The Chance Trail,"; [13] “Wings of Mystery,”; [14] “The Hidden Way,”; [15] “The Secret Host"

15 part serial: CHAPTER TITLES: 1. The Sultan's Necklace; 2. The Bowstring; 3. The Air Peril; 4. Amid the Clouds; 5. Between Fire and Water; 6. The Abandoned Mine; 7. The False Pearl; 8. The Man Trap; 9. The Message on the Wire; 10. The Hold-Up; 11. Gems of Jeopardy; 12. Buried Alive; 13. Over the Falls; 14. The Tower of Death; 15. The Seventh Pearl.

A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.

After the death of a gangster, those familiar with his million dollar stash start mysteriously dying. Police detectives with the help of a clairvoyant try to determine who, living or dead, is responsible.

The wife of a doctor in China falls in love with a diplomat.

A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.

Starting with "The Wolf Man" (in 1941), Universal Studios made five movies featuring The Wolf Man, a character portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr. Monster by Moonlight! explores these movies. Rick Baker explains how the make-up was done on Chaney's character. Screenwriter Curtis Siodmak took very little from earlier werewolf legends, providing his own story for some of the films. This documentary displays clips from several other movies, including "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) and "House of Dracula" (1945).

Nell Gwyn and King Charles II fall in love after meeting at a fox hunt. Nell soon learns the jealous Duchess of Portsmouth is a spy and conspiring with the Duke of Buckingham to place Charles at the mercy of the King of France. Nell boldly disguises herself as a fashionable young blade and wins the confidence of the Duchess. Now entrusted with the delivery of important documents, she makes sure they go to the King of England rather than the King of France.

In the home of the stalwart young son and his mother, the girl rescued from the sea grows strong again after her fearful exposure. Her attractiveness, so different from that of the fisher maidens, has a telling effect on the young man. He asks her, at length, to become his bride, and she accepts. But a few days before the wedding the affianced bride disappears, sailing away with a strange man from the city, who has suddenly appeared. Thinking that his sweetheart had deserted him for another, the fisherman is heartbroken for a time, but gradually the keen edge of his sorrow wears away, and he succumbs to the attractions of another girl, one who had recently come to the village with her father, and who had lived together and alone at the end of the town.

Sally Marrio, neglected wife of a prominent shoe designer, has three wishes: to be a millionaire's wife, to be famous, and to have a child.

When Alice Winton's brother embezzles funds belonging to his employer, Benjamin Graves, a promoter of worthless mining stock, she saves him from arrest by signing over to Graves a hefty promissory note. Later Graves deliberately wrecks the mining company in which Alice's invalid father has invested his money, and the shock from the resulting bankruptcy, kills him. Alice marries Robert Burton, a noted criminologist who believes in the theory, "once a thief, always a thief," and the couple takes up temporary residence with District Attorney Jeffrey Miller. In Miller's safe are incriminating documents concerning Graves's illegal activities, and Graves, knowing of their existence, blackmails Alice into stealing them by showing her some compromising love letters to which he has forged her name.

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

When Juliet Pim, bored with her husband Archibald's habitual ardent attentions, goes to a Swami, his advice that her "individualism" is being crushed leads her to request that Pim furnish her with a "reason" for a divorce suit.

Addicted youth Roy Wilson steals his architect father's bid for a railway contract to pay gambling debts to Graham Madison, but the theft leads to his father's death and an attempt to frame Roy's sister Jessie's sweetheart, Carew. After Carew is wrongly accused, a confession from Roy and the exposure of Madison and Carew's plotting lead to Madison's arrest, Carew's vindication, and hope for the future.

In the hills of Kentucky, Alexander McGivens, known as "the girl in pants," is reared by her father as if she were a boy. When her father, Aaron, is wounded in a fight with Bud Sellers, the girl undertakes to get her father's logs to market with the help of a crew from the lumber camp. Her numerous suitors include a young Irishman, Jerry O'Keefe, roughneck Jase Mallows, and a wealthy young easterner, Jack Halloway. After delivering the logs, she entrusts her money to the repentant Bud Sellers, and on her return trip she is captured by Mallows and his followers. She finally reaches home, where she offers her hand to O'Keefe, the soft-spoken mountaineer.

Josie, a New York showgirl with a mind of her own and a heart of gold, finds herself stranded on the island of Fiji. While seeking a way home she is befriended by a local man who gets her a job working as a barmaid at The Bamboo Bar. There she meets an alcoholic World War I veteran who is haunted by his wartime experiences and has an irrational fear of fire. Under her concerned care, he begins to recover and they fall in love. But then her jealous self-appointed boyfriend forces the veteran to participate in a traditional Fijian fire-walking ritual. To overcome his terror he must walk across 20 feet of burning coals and fight his rival to reach Josie's loving arms.

Beam opens a boarding house and many interesting characters are introduced. She spreads her optimism to their lives. Also to her blind father by telling him army stories about her brother when in actuality, he's deserted.

En route to the U.S., Joe Hoggart persuades several other immigrants to pool their money and purchase a tract of land, which proves to be rich in oil years later. With the assistance of his associate, Bill Shopps, Joe seeks to control the other investors' certificates. He travels to Spain, where he discovers that a partner named Garros has died. Joe kidnaps Garros' daughter, Rolande, and claims that she has also died. After Didier Bouchard, another member of the group, gathers the partners and their heirs together, Joe lures them into a building where, ostensibly, a sale of the land is to take place. Joe imprisons them, but they escape in time to attend the sale. An investor named Milo d'Espail learns that Rolande is still alive and rescues her from Joe. Bouchard marries Thérèse, another of Garros's daughters.

Bob Monkhouse introduces the golden age of slapstick comedy.

When Bill Fowler decided to wed the wealthy widow, Isabel Dare, of Rye, N.Y., he gave a bachelor dinner. And the dinner degenerated into a quiet game with sugar for dice until constable Zack arrived with sleuths galore and landed them everyone safe and sound in the local calaboose. This was an early five-reeler that featured the famous George Bickel and Harry Watson duo.

A drama about twin sisters Daisy and Violet, who grow up unaware of each other's existence, one with their wealthy father and the other with their poor mother. The two sisters are manipulated by a criminal.

This 15 chapter serial is considered to be "the last of the adult serials". Produced in Wilkes-Barre, PA., it has crisp editing, fast action, and carefully lit and composed interiors and lush pictorial exteriors. This is a serial of great complexity with the director, the photographer and title-maker always in absolute control. The extraordinary rhythmic momentum of the film is never lost despite the films complex plot turns. This is the best of the surviving serials from the silent era.