Best Drama Movies of 1910

The Indians send a young chief to Washington as representative before lawmakers and cabinet, to secure justice and proper redress for the fraudulent barter of their lands, to which outrages they have been subjected, owing to their helplessness to prevent it. Smighting is very much perturbed at this possible hindrance which threatens to upset his apparently successful land fraud, and he immediately convenes a caucus at the capitol of those legislators of his brand who can be approached for the ultimate motive of securing the passage of the "Land Grab" bill. To doubly ensure the accomplishment of his desire, he enlists the services of his family-- in that he instructs his daughter to exert her charm over the young Indian so as to keep him away from the object of his visit.

The day before the Christmas holiday, Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard-fisted miser, refuses to contribute to the Charity Relief Committee, and then rudely rejects his nephew Fred when he visits Scrooge in his office. When Scrooge returns home, he sees the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him of the punishment he will suffer in the next life if he does not change his ways. That night, Scrooge is visited by three more spirits, who show him his past, the present, and the future that awaits him.

This is not the Faust which Méliès made, but another version. The last half of the film is missing. It is interesting to note how, in an effort to let the audience know what the actors were thinking, visions were used as here when the tapestry on the wall gives place to Marguerite’s memory of her meeting with Faust.

During the Civil War, a father living in a border state leaves to join the Union Army. After he leaves, Confederate troops forage on his property, where a soldier encounters one of his daughters. The father himself is wounded on a hazardous mission and must run for his life, pursued by Confederate soldiers.

The opening scene of our story shows a Union powder wagon making its way down the road convoyed by a company of mounted Union soldiers. The route of this wagon is reported to Confederate headquarters by one of its spies. Nan, a girl frequently employed by the department of the Confederate army, is called to headquarters and instructed to secure the destruction of the enemy's ammunition train just reported. Nan is fitted out with a Union uniform, mounted on a fast horse and sent on her journey, previously provided with a forged order supposedly signed by a Union general which authorizes her to pass through the lines.

Two Johns, a Confederate and an Union soldier, leave their families to go to the front. After a skirmish they end up separated from their respective sides, the Union soldier shoots the Confederate, but he has to escape and look for refuge in the house of his enemy.

A frantic child reports to the tribal chief that her father killed her mother. The tribe chases and captures the man, dragging him back for tribal justice.

During the Civil War a young soldier loses his nerve in battle and runs away to his home to hide; his sister puts on his uniform, takes her brother's place in the battle, and is killed. Their mother, not wanting the shameful truth to become known, closes all the shutters (hence the film's title) and keeps her son's presence a secret for many years, though two boyhood chums stumble upon the truth...

In the heart of the American west, a miner toils day after day at his rocker box while his young daughter keeps his camp. His daughter persuades him to return to civilization, where they may enjoy the fruits of their labor. Both are happy in the anticipation of what seems a bright future. While she's away, a desert wanderer appears at the camp, and at the sight of the old man weighing his gold is seized with cupidity. He himself had toiled long in the wilds, but with no success, so he demands that the old man divide his gains with him. This, of course, the miner decries, and the wanderer uses force to obtain the old man's gold. The wanderer collapses in the desert, only to be rescued by a certain young woman: the miner's daughter.

A wealthy, callous moneylender finds a terrifying way to learn about money's limitations.

Ramona, a young girl growing up on her adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian lad Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the two lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the bigotry and greed of the white landowners.

Typical morality tale has a Deacon coming onto a "wild child" (Dorothy West) but after she rejects him he goes back into town saying that the girl and her mother are witches.

An experiment goes wrong and blinds a newly married chemist. The chemist's wife does not want to take on the burden of caring for the blind chemist, and her younger sister take her place.

A young maiden is seduced by a charming traveling peddler who persuades her to steal from her host family in order to repay his gambling debts.

Two spinsters on their way to church, are accosted by a couple of burly tramps. When Mabel is called to the church meeting with her mother, she sends Muggsy a note asking him to meet her after the service so he may walk home with her. Muggsy is there on time, however, the old ladies are afraid to make the return trip unaccompanied. The pastor asks that a man escort them home. Poor Muggsy gets chosen, and when the trio reach the deserted part of the road, the tramps again appear.

After her mother's death, Ruth struggles to support herself as a seamstress. While Ruth delivers shirts to the factory owner, the owner's son steals some money and Ruth is accused of the crime. She flees the ghetto of New York's Lower East Side and hides in the country where she meets a young farmer.

A young man leaves Ireland for America, but doesn't forget home.

A rich nobleman steals a perfume merchant's wife just prior to the French Revolution, in which the perfumer is a leader of the peasants. His priest made him swear an oath to leave vengeance to God, however.

Peggy is a high-spirited young woman from a poor family. One day she catches the eye of a wealthy lord, who proposes marriage and wants to introduce her into his social circle. But complications arise when the lord's nephew also becomes attracted to Peggy.

Two sisters want to know whether there is romance in their future. One sister pulls the petals off of a flower, while the other has her fortune told by a gypsy. When the gypsy tells the fortune so as to serve his own purposes, complications soon develop.

The first of six Shakespeare adaptations from Thanhouser, The Winter’s Tale was just the 13th or 14th title from the studio in its first nine weeks of releases.

This picture tells the story of Lucy Dane, a Canadian lumberman's daughter, and of Will Harding's love for her. Will is a worthy young surveyor and Lucy feels honored to have his love, and returns it. Jose, a half-breed trapper, adores Lucy and necessarily dislikes Will, whom he correctly counts his successful rival. More, he bears Will a grudge for responding to Lucy's cries for help when he forced his attentions on her in a lonely neck of the woods.

A young couple’s love is forbidden by the girl’s father. He forces her to write a farewell letter. Three years later, the Civil War begins and the father dies. At the end of the war, her boyfriend comes to visit her and all the suffering is forgotten.

Edwin Thanhouser re-made The Vicar of Wakefield in 1917 as a eight-reel feature film providing us with a frame of reference for the maturation of film language and cinematic techniques over the ensuing eight year period.

This Cinderella is up to date. She and her sister Jane receive an invitation to a reception. Jane, selfish and arrogant, is carried away with her own vanity and anticipation of making a "hit" and being the belle of the evening. Cinderella, her sister, looks at her simple and ordinary drew, which is the best of her limited wardrobe, and says she will have to wear it or stay at home. Jane says she will look like a "frump," and be out of place, anyway. Poor Cinderella decides to remain at home. Mrs. Marvin, an elderly visitor, happens into the room and Cinderella, always kind and thoughtful, makes the old lady comfortable. She is attracted to the display of Jane's finery and asks the reason. Cinderella tells her all about the reception.

A country girl follows a city suitor, but is left alone and must fend for herself.

First, the eye is introduced to the old mill itself, with a gay betrothal party in progress, and laughter and merriment on all sides. Suddenly the laughter is hushed by the martial tread of feet, and the smile of joy fades from the two young lovers' faces as the French soldiers march into the courtyard and prepare to defend the mill against the oncoming attack of the German army. The mild summer afternoon has but half way run its course towards its western home when a wounded outpost comes staggering into the courtyard with the news of the advancing German army stamped upon his blood-stained forehead. Suddenly the courtyard is filled with the smoke of battle, and we know that the long-expected attack is on.

When his play closes down, an actor returns home to find that his children are gone. He's then notified that a wealthy relative has died and left him a substantial amount of money.

The evils of drink cause a man to separate from his family. In time he becomes sober and prosperous. Then he meets and falls in love with a young woman, and they become engaged. Unbeknownst to him this young woman is his own daughter.

Jess Wilson, a young and pretty school teacher of the "Golden West." is just leaving the little schoolhouse in which she teaches, when Joe Blackburn, a man with a "bad reputation," meets her and forces his attentions upon her, finally proposing marriage. Jess is insulted and orders him away. Blackburn, angry and vindictive, swears he will get her yet. A few nights later, Jim Brady, a cowboy, who is courting Jess, proposes marriage and is accepted. As Jim is slipping an engagement ring on Jess' finger, Blackburn appears and again makes his threat, saying, "You haven't got her yet and you never will." Young Deer, an Indian, and his squaw. Red Wing, are trying to sell some beadwork, when Blackburn, who has been drinking very hard and is in a fighting mood, attacks both of them. Jim Brady, seeing the plight of the Indians, comes to their aid and drives off Blackburn, who is now more determined than ever to get revenge.

The action of this story takes place on the frontier of Kentucky in 1800. Inside a stockade several settlers have their log cabin homes. The family with which we are concerned consists of a frontiersman, his wife and four children, the oldest, Tom, a boy of fourteen, the youngest a baby girl, Ruth. The children have a constant playmate in a magnificent collie dog called Shep. One day the father goes hunting with the other men of the settlement. In their anxiety to be early at the hunting ground they forget to close the gate of the stockade. At about this point the adventure which is portrayed in the picture begins. Ruth sees a favorable opportunity to investigate the region beyond the stockade, and, while her mother is in another part of the cabin and her older sister is busily engaged in poking the ashes in the open fireplace, she quietly walks out of the cabin door and on through the stockade and rambles off into the hills. On returning to the room the mother misses the child.

A woman in a ragged dress staggers to a road sign. A hunter comes by. She asks him for directions. He gives them and starts to leave, but she staggers, and he takes her home to his sister to care for. Later, he asks her to marry him and she agrees. However, one day while out shopping, she meets a rich hunter....

To the distress of his mother, the fisherman's son is a drunk. But when his father's boat capsizes, he has a chance to prove his worth.

An old colonel is proud as a peacock: his son leads a group of volunteers in the American Civil War. Untill one day his son returns home as a deserter.

Little Mario, the child musician, lives with his old father in impoverished circumstances. The father is very feeble and able to do but little work. Mario is obliged to play his violin on the streets to earn what money he can. One day his father is confined to the home by sickness

Mrs. String, sitting under the rose bushes with her baby, Helen, on her knee, is approached lovingly by her husband, who lovingly speaks to his family and then shakes the rose bushes over their heads, causing the white leaves to fall upon their heads in a shower of rarest sun tints.

A railway switchman falls asleep whilst on duty. The swicthman wakes up too late, and, realizing his error, begins to hallucinate the probable outcome of his inaction. His wife, however, springs into action.

The incidents of this story are some of those preceding and leading up to the Civil War in 1861 and the Declaration of Emancipation. The central figure in the drama is Uncle Tom, a slave initially in the possession of the Shelbys of Kentucky. A 1927 re-release of this film cut the original runtime in half, and in its extant, fragmentary state, it runs 14 minutes.

An impressive Vitagraph short, one of many popular firemen-to-the-rescue films of the time.

Three boys are playing in the garden while mama is darning socks. They sneak off to head to the seashore. They find a boat which a fisher has left for a second, so of course they take it and are soon stranded on some rocks away off in the water, the boat missing.

A young girl who loves an unworthy young fellow, of little character and less conscience, consents to a secret marriage. After a spell he tires of her and deserts her. Through a letter he has left, she follows him to England, where she eventually traces him to an apartment, where he has been living in style and comfort. He has just received a letter from his father, who suggests that he would have him return home, where he can arrange a marriage for him with an heiress.

A Romeo and Juliet story of the rivalry between two miners, one rich and one poor, whose son and daughter overcome their respective fathers' opposition.

Mrs. Jones' cough has been very troublesome, but money is very short and little Dolly is sent by her father to induce that kind old Mr. Burrows, the neighboring chemist, to let them have a bottle of soothing syrup mixture on trust. Off she goes and succeeds in getting the syrup: the bottle falls on the ground, is smashed and the whole of the contents spilled. Now after little Dolly's departure from the chemist's shop Mr. Burrows' assistant discovers that the wrong bottle has been given to the child and instead of the medicine it was a bottle of poison.