The Runaway Sleeper

To spite her fiancé, who claims to know how to handle women, Rosamond engages in reckless behavior, including racing cars and getting arrested. Climax: After surviving a car crash, she is captured by criminals but eventually rescued, leading to her submissive reform.

A farmer frames a petty officer for theft and confesses after falling over a cliff.

A woman hears of a murder plot through a whispered voice on the telephone.

Larry Thomas works as a minor employee in a large insurance company. He loves Ellen Horton, who has great faith in him. When Larry is falsely accused of murder, it is Ellen who saves the day. She also manages to help him achieve the position in the business he deserves.

Barbara Rand is blinded when she leaps through a window to escape an assailant. Her sister, Natalie, reluctantly abandons her fiancé, Ned Gardiner, and marries Oliver Landis, who can provide the money needed for Barbara's operation. Unaware that Oliver was Barbara's attacker, Natalie blames his business partner, Howard Pollard, who was with Barbara on the night she was injured. Natalie holds Howard at gunpoint, but when her husband arrives, he promises to deal with the villain making sure Howard falls to his death. Upon Barbara’s release from the hospital, Oliver tries to blind her once. Natalie threatens him with a pistol, but Oliver wrests it away from her. He then realizes that he can no longer hide his guilt from Natalie or the police and shoots himself. Barbara has been avenged, and Natalie is free to marry Ned.

A father who despises his daughter, a boyfriend who refuses to marry the girl he knocked up, and a mother caught in the middle.

The disgrace and suicide of her father drives Eleanore Marston from her comfortable existence into a life as a department store clerk in New York. There she meets wealthy Powers Fiske, who offers her a life of luxury if she will consent to an operation on her brain which would deprive her of her memory.

Tomboy Bess Aiken grows up quickly when her mother deserts her father to elope with wealthy Easterner Vernon Treloar. Left alone with her father, Bess begins to long for feminine companionship, and when an opportunity arises for Bess to visit her newly-remarried mother, her father consents. The little girl soon finds herself in a fairytale world of beautiful gowns and extravagant luxury. Believing that anything her mother does must be correct, Bess soon learns to smoke and drink, much to the displeasure of Kirke Livingston, who loves her but fears she has inherited her mother's weaknesses. Bess disregards his warnings until one day she finds her mother embracing another man. Disillusioned, she departs immediately for her father's cabin, traveling through the woods all night. At daybreak, Kirke finds her and wins her hand in marriage.

The wanton dancer Thais, tries to entice Paphnutius from becoming a monk but fails. He later returns to reclaim her soul and follow in his footsteps. They attempt to live lives of simplicity, but the pull of worldliness is too strong.

American silent drama film following an early Vitagraph leading man and matinee idol. Prints of the film are held at the Library of Congress and George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection.

Jacqueline Floriot is driven from her home by her husband Louis, a deputy attorney of Paris, because of his unjust suspicions regarding her relations with another man. Floriot forbids Jacqueline to see her baby boy, who is dangerously ill, and when informed that the boy believes her dead, she attempts suicide.

Reporter Frank Sloan, investigating the disappearance of a Chinese slave girl in Chinatown which leads to opium addiction, job loss, and personal ruin, until a major murder brings him back into the story, revealing the dark underbelly of the district.

Bob Reynolds, a construction engineer, is constructing a dam. Finding himself in financial trouble, he is persuaded by John Brand to use a cheaper--but far inferior--cement to replace the cement he's been using. Brand, who is determined to ruin Reynolds, then talks him into buying worthless stock. Finding himself in desperate straits, Reynolds forges a check using Brand's name. Unfortunately the finished dam breaks and many people are killed. Under suspicion by the authorities, Reynolds desperate searches for a way out of his worsening situation.

When a taxi carrying socialite Ruth Darrow drives into the middle of a gun battle between hijacker Kid Gloves and a trio of bootleggers, Ruth is injured. She is taken to a nearby apartment, and The Kid helps to care for her. John Stone, Ruth's fiance and a bootlegger with a respectable front, finds them together and blackmails The Kid into marrying the girl.

Young John Adams is working his way through college and lives in a boarding house where Jane, a hardworking and unassuming maid, falls deeply in love with him. John, however, is initially oblivious to Jane's feelings. He is instead infatuated with Ethelda Rathbone, a socially prominent college girl. John wishes to attend a high-society ball where Ethelda will be present, but he lacks the means or social standing to fit in. As the story progresses, the "plain" Jane proves her worth and devotion, eventually winning John's heart over the more superficial Ethelda.

The Thompson-Thorpe automobile was once a great car but dissension between the owners led to the break-up of the company, and Thompson and Thorpe have each started their own car-manufacturing company. Not knowing his true identity, Earle Thorpe Jr. has been hired by Henry Thompson to drive his new car in an upcoming race. Unknown to Thompson has two crooked mechanic/engineers on his payroll who plan to make their own car, using Thompson's plans, and win the big race themselves. Etta, Thompson’s daughter, and Earle team up to re-unite Thompson and Thorpe Sr. by taking the best features of both cars and combine them into one super car.

When Rosamond, a convent girl, discovers that her mother is Baby Brabant, a notorious queen of Petworth's gambling house, her ideals are shattered and she denounces her mother's life.

Crooked gambler Eddie Kane induces his estranged wife, Poppy, to help him blackmail Brownlow Clay, the owner of a clean-cut gambling establishment in Tijuana. The plan involves Kane "discovering" Poppy in Clay's private apartment to demand hush money. During the setup, Poppy finds herself genuinely falling for Clay. Overcome with remorse and ashamed of her part in the "badger game," Poppy chooses to protect Clay and double-crosses her husband instead. With Kane's plot defeated, Poppy and Clay are free to marry and start a happy future together.

As her first wedding anniversary approaches, a young wife begins to believe that her husband doesn't love her anymore, and she turns to a former suitor for comfort. Soon she makes up her mind to leave her husband, but when he is seriously injured she must decide if she really wants to end her marriage.

Restored by the George Eastman House in 2001, this 1928 serial was considered a “last hurrah” for the silent-era serial, and brought together some of the biggest names of the era: director J.P. McGowan, actors Francis Ford and Joe Bonomo (a carnival strongman-turned-actor), producer Trem Carr (who would later help found Monogram Pictures), and a slew of silent-era supporting icons such as Ruth Hiatt, Grace Cunard, and more. Chapter names like “The Clutching Claw,” “The Devil’s Dice, “Galloping Fury,” and “The Invisible Hand” offer all one needs to know of the film’s concerns: to promise and deliver as much action and suspense as possible, and move our intrepid hero and heroine from one perilous situation to another. One of the biggest stars of the early silent era and a successful serials director in his own right, Francis Ford was the brother of director John Ford.