J. Gordon Edwards Movies

Mary Doone (Theda Bara) is a poor British girl who runs away from her adopted family because the father made a pass at her. She lives at a parish house, and at the outbreak of World War I, she becomes a Red Cross nurse. At the front she meets war correspondent Lloyd Stanley (Stuart Holmes). Stanley tries to have his way with her but she is saved when the hospital tent is bombed. To get away from Stanley, she takes on the clothes and identity of an (apparently) dead girl, Ethel Wardley (Madeleine Le Nard). Ethel was on her way to live with Lady Clifford (Lucia Moore), an aunt she has never seen. So that's where Mary goes. There she meets and falls in love with Ethel's cousin Elliott (A.H. Van Buren). They become engaged. But Ethel is not dead and she recovers from her wounds. She and Stanley head for the Clifford estate to blow Mary's cover. It doesn't matter, however, because Mary has already admitted the ruse, and the family has forgiven and accepted her anyhow. Bara was going through a very un-vampish period in her career during the time this film was made -- it was sandwiched between Under Two Flags and Romeo and Juliet. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Believe it or not, this 1915 American version of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was the second full-length treatment of the story; the first was filmed in Russia in 1914. Produced by the fledgling Fox Film Corporation, this Anna Karenina starred Danish actress Betty Nansen in the title role. Despite its relatively brief 5-reel running time, the film was a fairly lucid retelling of the aristocratic Anna's disastrous extramarital affair with the dashing Count Vronsky. The familiar dramatic setpieces, including Anna's climactic suicide, were not nearly as fascinating to watch as an extended "location" sequence in which Anna and the Count were seen enjoying a skiing expedition. Anna Karenina would of course be remade several times, most memorably by Greta Garbo in 1936 and Vivien Leigh in 1947. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi