All Films

Castles for Two

1917 • 48 min • United States of America

An American heiress who goes to Ireland meets a bankrupt lord. She switches places with her maid to avoid fortune hunters.

A Stormy Knight

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

While relaxing in his cabin one stormy night, John Winton, a rising young businessman who has successfully resisted the institution of marriage, is interrupted by cries for help. Opening his door, he finds a soaking wet, pretty girl, who pleads with him to come to her aid.

The Reward of the Faithless

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

A woman who is presumed dead takes revenge on her unfaithful husband.

Lost and Won

1917 • 55 min • United States of America

A newswoman meets a man who has bet his colleagues he can make her beautiful.

Paradisfågeln

1917 • 57 min • Sweden

Ayo Vindico is known in the capital Stockholm as the Bird of paradise.

On the Level

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.

Down the Old Potomac

1917 • 12 min • United States of America

This fascinating 12-minute documentary from Edison's Conquest Pictures features a man in a small boat being pulled (from a horse on shore) down the Potomac river. From Cumberland, MD, through Washington, DC, this short charts the Waterway and its locks.

House of Cards

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

The Mannings are a professional couple--she is a doctor, he is a lawyer--who are so absorbed in their careers that they have little time for their young daughter Louise, who is left to be raised by their servants. They are shaken out of their single-minded pursuit of their careers when Louise--feeling neglected, unloved and unhappy--runs away with a young newsboy.

Life and Death

1917 • 8 min • Italy

An eight-minute fragment of this Italian Golden Age film survives.

The Little Yank

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Sallie is a beautiful Kentucky girl who belongs to a family of Union sympathizers. Her brother is a lieutenant in the Union army, and on a visit home brings Major Rushton, his superior officer, who falls in love with Sallie, "the little Yank."

The Flirt

1917 • 8 min • United States of America

A man takes a job in a café, hoping to get to know the pretty waitress working there.

The Leap

1917 • 10 min • United States of America

Episode 13 of the "Purple Mask" serial. Directed by Grace Cunard and Francis Ford.

Unknown 274

1917 • 50 min

The arrest in America of a foreigner for evading military service in his native land results in his daughter becoming "No. 274" in an orphanage. She is later adopted by a couple who plan to sell her into matrimonial slavery, but she wins the love of a rich young man, who marries her. Later she is reunited with her father through playing a violin, to which she has clung through all her misadventures.

The Great Bradley Mystery

1917 • 55 min • United States of America

Business partners Bradley and Collier both love Mary. Bradley leads Collier to believe he is engaged to her so Collier prepares to head West when Lola, the young girl Bradley had seduced and abandoned, appears at the office and begs Bradley for help. He spurns her slipping out of the office and making it appear that Collier is the lout. Mary with that perception marries Bradley only to discover by Lola’s deathbed confession that she has been deceived. Tony, Lola's father, crazed by his daughter's death, comes to Bradley's office and the next day Bradley is found dead. When Tony is arrested Collier steps forward to say he confronted Bradley and as they struggled the revolver Bradley drew went off, killing him. Tony is freed and Collier and Mary marry.

The Gates of Doom

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Indore, an Indian woman married to the English Captain Terence Unger is imprisoned by the prince after she gives birth to a baby daughter named Agatha. On his deathbed, Unger beseeches his friend Francis Duane to care for Agatha which Duane does, returning to England with the infant.

Sunshine and Gold

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Shouts of joy and the clapping of many tiny hands welcomed the arrival of the big birthday cake. For this was Little Mary's birthday. To celebrate all Mary's little friends had been invited and the big event which preceded the supper and the cutting of the cake was a performance of Cinderella and the affair of the glass slipper. Little Mary forgot to leave at the hour of 12, and when she was called away by the fairy she dropped her glass slipper on the stair. Of course, to every one's amazement, when the Prince went looking for the owner of the slipper, the only one whom it fitted was Little Mary.

Bullies and Bullets

1917 • 13 min • United States of America

A slapstick comedy directed by Larry Semon and starring Hughie Mack & Patsy De Forest.

Starring in Western Stuff

1917 • 20 min • United States of America

A short Western comedy from 1917

The Devil's Pay Day

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

When Gregory Van Houten went to the country to recuperate, he intended to remain only a few weeks and then return to plunge into the swirl of city gaieties. But when Van Houten returned he brought with him a country-girl wife and set upon himself the seal of new duties and obligations.

Bondage

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Dorothy Phillips was starred as Elinor Crawford, a small-town girl who becomes a reporter on a big-city newspaper -- and immediately plunges into the "Bohemian" lifestyle. Assigned to interview a condemned murderer, Elinor must first obtain permission from criminal lawyer Evan Klavert (William Stowell), who happens to hail from Elinor's hometown and who prudishly disapproves of her current mode of living.

When You and I Were Young

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Farm girl Dorothy, clashes with her traditional father over her ambition to become a writer and eventually leaves to pursue her dreams after meeting an artist.

The More Excellent Way

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Chrissey Desselden is the ward of John Warburton and has promised to marry him though she is drawn to the roguish Robert Neyland. When Robert’s caddish behavior becomes too flagrant, she marries John despite still feeling a pull towards the bad boy. Conflicted, she asks her husband for time to sort out her feelings but when she discovers Neyland’s plot to destroy John’s fortune for spite she spurns him and settles into a happy marriage.

Bond of Fear

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

When stern Judge McClure gets into an argument with his younger brother John, a physical fight ensues in which the judge apparently kills John. In fear of the consequences, he runs off to the West and hires guide Cal Nelson to take him far into the desert. Along the way they meet Mary Jackson, and the judge, overcome by heat prostration, babbles out his secret.

Wild Winship's Widow

1917 • 50 min • United States of America

Widow Catherine Winship cherishes the memory of her late husband so greatly that she has given up her life to the adoration of his memory. However Catherine's idealism is rudely shattered when she discovers a package of love letters in a secret drawer in Winship's desk.