A series of 2-reel thrillers in which a society girl has a position as a special investigator for the police and works on various cases where her unique talents can help to solve crimes. Each episode is complete in itself.
Social & External
The people behind it
Ruth Roland
Ruth, The Girl Detective
Marin Sais
Bertha, the Girl Detective
Cleo Ridgely
Kate Rumson / Mrs. Rodger Hastings / Olga / Queenie / Molly Moran / Jean, The Girl Detective
Edward Clisbee
Chief of Police Harding
Arthur Shirley
John Talcott
William H. West
Rumson / Strumfsky / Isaacson / Fairfax / Marsden / Rankin / Deacon / Merriman / Craven / Kerrigan / Brandon / Dr. Barry
Paul Hurst
Blair / Thompson / Michaels / Snake Henely / Mike Donegal / Bat Dorgan / Kelly / Dalton / Blake
Ollie Kirby
Mrs. Churchill / Emily Wharton / Mary Kerrigan / Marie / Mrs. Winslow / Mabel Keene / Mrs. Cluett
Thomas G. Lingham
George Warren / Machson / Doran / Rat Hogan / Ripert Bladeau / Jarvis / Breslow / Jeffries / Rillando / Dr. Keene
Frank Jonasson
McGregor / Buck Donegal / Fourteen-Carat Tommy / Henri Bladeau / Turner / Denton / Jordan / Scotty Weed
A 15-episode dramatic action movie serial only two of which survive.
German adaptation of Maurice Leblanc's "Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes" stories. German copyright laws allowed the producers to return "Sholmes" to the proper "Sherlock Holmes" who was portrayed by Viggo Larsen.
Paris is prey to an invisible terror against which the police can do nothing: a sinister organization that sows chaos and death. The intrepid journalist Philippe Guérande and his partner embark on a long crusade to put an end to the crimes of the Great Vampire and Irma Vep, his dangerous accomplice. (A ten episode movie serial.)
This twenty-three episode serial told the story of a secret society called The Black Hundred and its attempts to gain control of a lost million dollars.
A train that is carrying the formula for a valuable form of granulated gasoline disappears before it reaches its destination. Railroad investigators and the authorities try to determine where it is and who took it.
A silent 15-part movie serial.
Dr. Mabuse and his organization of criminals are in the process of completing their latest scheme, a theft of information that will allow Mabuse to make huge profits on the stock exchange. Afterwards, Mabuse disguises himself and attends the Folies Bergères show, where Cara Carozza, the main attraction of the show, passes him information on Mabuse's next intended victim, the young millionaire Edgar Hull. Mabuse then uses psychic manipulation to lure Hull into a card game where he loses heavily. When Police Commissioner von Wenk begins an investigation of this mysterious crime spree, he has little to go on, and he needs to find someone who can help him.
A movie serial directed by Francis Ford.
On the American frontier in the last decades of the 19th century, Billie is a female cowboy who fights a series of bad men in this film serial.
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...
The heirs of Anton Benson are searching Bensonhurst for hidden gold; they are joined by a reporter, a gangster...and a masked fiend known as The Iron Claw.
Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey stars in this 15 chapter action serial, of which portions of reels 1, 2, and 4 survive. In the serial he plays the star fullback of his college's football team who gets drawn into an adventure when he stops to rescue a young woman from some thugs on a country road. It includes a gag featuring an exploding football. The rest of the cast includes Lon Chaney, Edgar Kennedy, Bull Montana, Josie Sedgwick and Herschel Mayall.
In this action-packed serial, government agent Quentin Locke infiltrates a corrupt patents company, only to run into the gleaming terror of its robot protector, the Automaton. In order to save the beautiful Eva Brent and find a cure for the dreaded Madagascar Madness, Locke suffers an inhuman array of tortures and physical restraints. He is chained, tied with barbed wire, padlocked in a crate and thrown in the water, tied beneath a descending elevator, strapped to an electric chair, and bound in an elaborate Oriental torture chamber.
In attempting to develop a chemical which would make a person super-intelligent, Dr. Montrose fails and the subjects of his experiments metamorphose into hideous monsters who band together and prey on humans. With the police stymied, a young detective attempts to track down the leader of the group of killers, known only to have a small crimson stain in one eye.
This 15-chapter serial pits Batman and Robin against The Wizard, who uses a device that allows him to control machinery to hold the city hostage.
A mad doctor named Zanoff uses a drug to bring himself back from the dead after his execution in prison. Dick Tracy sets out to capture Zanoff before he can put his criminal gang back together again.
Carter Holmes, master criminologist, must help the oft-kidnapped Ruth Stanhope to find the 9 daggers that will unlock the secret of the cursed Devil's Trademark!
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.
The Wrecker wrecks trains on the L & R Railroad. One of his victims is Larry Baker's father. Baker wants to find the evildoer, among a host of suspects, but it will be difficult since the Wrecker can disguise himself to look like almost anyone
A pretty movie star is stalked by a strange gang whose leader is infatuated with her in this superior Pathé serial written by genre specialist H.H. van Loan. Released in 15 chapters between May and August of 1920, the serial offered a glimpse into the still mysterious world of movie-making
After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller is sent to Berlin to investigate.
A malevolent being known as The Jester terrorizes the inhabitants of a small town on Halloween night, including two estranged sisters who must come together to find a way to defeat this evil entity.
Federal agent Alexandra Barnes believes that Catherine Petersen is a serial killer who marries rich men and then murders them for their money. But since Catherine is seemingly a master of disguise and has multiple identities, Alexandra can't prove anything with conventional detective work. With no other option, she goes undercover, pursuing the same man as Catherine, and hoping that Catherine will slip up and reveal her true identity.
Wisecracking reporter Carl Kolchak investigates a string of murders in Las Vegas and suspects the culprit is a vampire. His editor thinks he's crazy and the police think he's a nuisance, so Kolchak takes matters into his own hands.
Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.
A troubled young woman becomes obsessed with her mysterious new neighbor, who bears a striking resemblance to the girl's dead mother.
Inspector Jacques Clouseau, smitten with the accused maid Maria Gambrelli, unwittingly turns a straightforward murder investigation into a comedic series of mishaps, testing the patience of his irritable boss Charles Dreyfus as casualties mount.
When a stranger enters a quiet, country town and is seduced by a sensuous married woman he unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a storm of sexual guilt and murder.
A murder investigation is reignited in a house that is considered haunted by the Lawrenceton locals and where years ago Aurora and Sally, as teenagers, discovered a body.
Nancy Drew, a smart high schooler with a penchant for keen observation and deduction, stumbles upon the haunting of a local home. A bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve the mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson find themselves in 1890s London in this holiday special.
An unemployed drifter, Eric Stanton wanders into a small California town and begins hanging around the local diner. While Eric falls for the lovely waitress Stella, he also begins romancing a quiet and well-to-do woman named June Mills. Since Stella isn't interested in Eric unless he has money, the lovelorn guy comes up with a scheme to win her over, and it involves June. Before long, murder works its way into this passionate love triangle.
Twenty years after the disappearance of her daughter, a recovering alcoholic is preparing to host her family's Christmas celebration when her estranged ex-brother-in-law arrives unannounced, bearing nostalgic gifts and a heavy secret.
Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”
At the insistence of Ruth Van Rydock, an old schoolfriend who is convinced that there is something wrong, Miss Marple agrees to visit 'Stonygates', the country house of Ruth's sister.
Charles Dobbs is a British secret agent investigating the apparent suicide of Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan. Dobbs suspects that Fennan's wife, Elsa, a survivor of a Nazi Germany extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. So Dobbs hires a retiring inspector, Mendel, to quietly make inquiries. Dobbs isn't at all sure as there are a number of anomalies that simply can't be explained away. Dobbs is also having trouble at home with his errant wife, whom he very much loves, having frequent affairs. He's also pleased to see an old friend, Dieter Frey, who he recruited after the war. With the assistance of a colleague and a retired policeman, Dobbs tries to piece together just who is the spy and who in fact assassinated Fennan.
A duel between a suspected murderer and a detective pressed by people who want results. But whose skin is really wanted?
Upon waking up to the news that the man she’d gone on a date with the previous night has been murdered, a young woman with only a faint memory of the night’s events begins to suspect that she murdered him while attempting to resist his advances.
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
Aurora Teagarden is a beautiful young librarian with a passion for solving murders. After an exhaustive search for the perfect home, Aurora finally purchases her dream house, unaware of its murky history. As she prepares to move in, Aurora discovers that the family who once lived there mysteriously disappeared without a trace.