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
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.
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 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...
A movie serial directed by Francis Ford.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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!
A French silent film serial which follows the exploits of the archvillain Fantômas, who commits crimes while eluding Inspector Juve's tireless persecution.
When a bank executive disappears, he is accused of stealing a fortune from the bank. But his daughter and her criminologist friend set out to find her father and clear his name.
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.
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.
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 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
Hop Harrigan, a top Air Corps pilot, leaves the military and he and his mechanic, Tank Tinker, open up a small charter air service. They are hired to fly an inventor, Dr. Tabor, to his secret laboratory, where he is working on a new and powerful energy machine. However, a mysterious villain named The Chief Pilot is determined to have the new energy machine for his own purposes and kidnaps Dr. Tabor.
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.
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.
Reporter Brenda Starr and her photographer Chuck Allen get involved in a search for the loot from a payroll robbery. Cliffhanging action and adventure and a fair amount of comic relief follow them at every turn.
Hank Davis, foreman on a huge dam project, enlists the aid of his two flyer friends when a sinister figure known as The Black Ace leads his Mystery Squadron of masked pilots in an attempt to destroy the dam.
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 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.
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.
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.
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
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.
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.
A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...
In the small resort town of Lighthouse Cove, everyone knows that the best man for the job is a woman. And that woman is Shannon Hughes, owner of a construction company and an expert in Victorian home restoration and renovation. Through her renovations she will find clues to uncover the house’s secret past and in turn become an unlikely sleuth to help crack these unsolved mysteries
A veteran homicide detective who has witnessed his socialite girlfriend kill her husband sees his inexperienced brother assigned to the case.
Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.
Librarian and real crime buff Aurora “Roe” Teagarden never liked Detective Sergeant Jack Burns, but she also never wanted to see him dead. When his body is found outside of Aurora’s home, she then becomes the main suspect. Determined to find the killer and clear her name, Aurora can't help but to get involved once again.
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.”
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.
There is excitement in the air when a Hollywood crew comes to Lawrenceton to film a movie about the town’s sleuthy librarian, Aurora Teagarden. However, when the film’s leading lady is found murdered in her dressing room, Aurora enlists her Real Murders Club members to help gather clues. At the same time, she experiences mounting concern that Aida is becoming attracted to the film’s director who, like everyone else working on the set that day, is considered a suspect. And this time around Martin is especially worried about Aurora’s safety after learning that the film’s screenwriter, who has a romantic history with her, emerges as the prime suspect.
Aurora Teagarden and her boyfriend Martin are thrilled when they get an unexpected visit from his niece and her new baby. Their excitement is short lived when his niece disappears and the baby is left behind. Once again, Aurora finds herself drawn into a deadly investigation as she risks it all to help Martin reunite with his family.
A sister and her disturbed twin are implicated in a murder and a police detective must figure out which one's the killer.
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.
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.
While attending a glamorous jazz cruise on New York’s East River, Nick and Nora Charles witness the fatal shooting of a wealthy patron. When suspicion falls on a young bandleader and his musicians, the couple steps in to clear their friends and uncover the real killer. Their investigation leads through a lively world of jazz clubs, radio personalities, high society, and backstage rivalries, where almost everyone has a secret and the next clue may be hidden in the music.