The Spirit of the Lake is a 1921 American silent short Western drama film produced by Cyrus J. Williams and distributed by Pathé Exchange. It was directed by Robert North Bradbury and stars Tom Santschi, Bessie Love, and Ruth Stonehouse.
Social & External
The people behind it
Tom Santschi
Bessie Love
Ruth Stonehouse
Edward Hearn
Bertha Sloan loses her job as a sewing-machine girl and subsequently is employed as telephone girl with a lingerie manufacturing company. She soon falls in love with the assistant shipping clerk, Roy Davis, and is promoted to chief model for the firm, owing to the patronage of Morton, the wealthy and wicked manager. Bertha is about to take a position in Paris as designer when Morton lures her to his home.
When two kleptomaniacs (including the brides’ father) and two actual thieves all attend a double wedding their light fingers cause no end of trouble for the mother of the brides to a dizzying degree!
A stand-off of pride between two families. One family has a pyromaniac in it, while the other, a member of law enforcement. When a detective and friend are killed by the bad boy of the other family, the double-murder is avenged by the father.
Letty, a minister's daughter, rejects her devoted admirer George for the deceptive Captain Fanshawe. After Fanshawe ruins her reputation by tricking her into an overnight city trip, her father resigns in shame. Following a scarlet fever epidemic, the characters find redemption, and George ultimately marries Letty.
Donald Gray is accused by his partner of dishonesty. The shock of the accusation kills him, and since his innocence cannot be proven, his daughter takes it upon herself to avenge the insult. Meeting Alan Burnham, the couple's only child, he decides to ruin his career.
Belle Bennett plays as the widowed mother of seven children living in Sioux City, Iowa. She moves with them to Cambridge, Massachusetts in order to educate her children with culture and give them every advantage. Bennett, who is unversed in financial matters, soon faces poverty for herself and her children. She takes out a loan from an unscrupulous lender (played by Richard Tucker), who is so impressed by the charm and valiant spirit of Bennett than he neglects to ask her for collateral. Bennett, however, is only able to partially pay her creditors. Marion Nixon, Bennett's eldest daughter, is shocked by her mother's actions and attempts to sacrifice herself to Tucker in order to clear her mother's obligations, even though she is engaged to marry a well to do Harvard undergraduate, played by Rex Bell. This film is believed lost.
White men grown brutish from jungle life---a beautiful girl at their mercy---risking all for love!
Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby's circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.
Neglected by shallow husband Dick, young bride Paula Wayne seeks male companionship outside the marital nest. She soon finds it in the form of mature lover Frank Gordon. Lost film.
When the Civil War breaks out, Alan Kendrick, an army officer born in the South, stays in the army to fight for the Union, but his sweetheart Maryland sides with the South. She soon discovers that Alan was captured by Confederates in a battle near her home and is to be executed. Although he is fighting for her enemy, she cannot bring herself to let him be killed and devises a plan to help him escape.
Jared Wolcott, storekeeper in a small country town, lives with his young sister, Marion. He succumbs to the flirtations of a Mrs. Elmore from a wealthy summer resort, and when he proposes and learns she is married he commits suicide. Marion vows to avenge her brother, and years later, as a successful illustrator in New York, she is engaged to illustrate George Elmore's latest novel. At the Elmore country home, she leads Mrs. Elmore to believe she has won her husband's love, although she is romantically involved with John Corliss. The revelation that Corliss is Mrs. Elmore's brother leads her to forgo her revenge, and disclosing her identity to the family, she leaves. Corliss follows, and they are united.
In Paris Mildred White becomes romantically involved with both Derwent Ainsworth and Dr. Mario Martinez. She prefers Derwent, but when he leaves suddenly to see his dying father, Mario convinces Mildred that he has deserted her. World War I begins, Derwent returns for Mildred, but upon learning that she is leaving Paris with Mario, he enlists in the army. Mildred, learning of Mario's deception joins the Red Cross to be near Derwent. When he is blinded in battle unbeknownst to him Mildred assumes his care. Their love renewed, though he is unaware of her identity, the two soon marry. Mildred then prevails upon Mario to perform a special operation on Derwent's eyes. His vision restored the pair restate their love.
A prosperous small-town peddler accedes to his family's wish to move from their secure existence to the uncertainty of New York City. It proves fruitless and eventually his kin sees the error of their ways and return to their true home.
Melia Nobbs, a young Canadian woman, supports both her invalid father Ambrose and brother Henry. When Henry faces arrest for helping himself to his employer's cash, Melia steals the amount from the star of the theater where she has been dancing and offers it to her brother if he will enlist in the army. Henry agrees and goes off to war, making Ambrose proud of his son, but when Ambrose learns that his daughter has been arrested for theft, he disowns her. Melia does not reveal the reason for taking the money and is sent to prison. Meanwhile, Henry fights bravely in France and returns home minus an arm but wearing the Victoria Cross. He finds his sister, weak and worn from overwork, in the prison hospital. Seeing her brother with his medals, Melia realizes that her sacrifices for him and her country have not been in vain, and that in her own way, she has served her country.
Gilbert enters his house through an open door and discovers a young female thief stealing his jewels. He lets her go, but they are both caught by two accomplices: one posing as the homeowner and the other as a policeman. The impostors manacle Gilbert and the girl together and have them "marched away." The fake policeman then returns, announcing he "gave them the slip," and he and his partner prepare to flee. At this point, the real police arrive, led by Gilbert and the girl, and the two wily crooks are arrested. The story concludes on a romantic note, with the open door proving to be their "gateway to happiness" as love awakens between Gilbert and the lass.
The story of two feuding Irish immigrant families living in a tenement.
Fannie joins Johnny to perform a music-hall act which becomes a success, until two Broadway producers catch the act and offer Fannie a job on their latest show; however, they have no place for Johnny, so Fannie turns down the offer. (Film considered lost.)
When a Broadway actress marries the son of a wealthy New York family, his father does everything he can to try and split the couple up. Eventually convinced of her worthiness, he changes his mind and gives them his blessing.
A tramp is hired to pose as a financier to obtain a Balkan radium concession.
Jonathan Jinks, a man known for his charm, gets into a bet about seducing opera star Aurelia Trentoni, leading to a series of comical misunderstandings and a secret engagement before a happy resolution.
A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.
After her outlaw husband returns home shot with eight bullets and barely alive, Jane reluctantly reaches out to an ex-lover who she hasn't seen in over ten years to help her defend her farm when the time comes that her husband's gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job.
Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
In 1897, veteran bounty hunter Max Borlund is deep into Mexico where he encounters professional gambler and outlaw Joe Cribbens — a sworn enemy he sent to prison years before. Max is on a mission to find and return Rachel Kidd, the wife of a wealthy businessman, who as the story is told to Max, has been abducted by Buffalo Soldier Elijah Jones. Max is ultimately faced with a showdown to save honor.
A mysterious woman comes to compete in a quick-draw elimination tournament, in a town taken over by a notorious gunman.
A widowed farmer and his son warily take in a mysterious, injured man with a satchel of cash. When a posse of men claiming to be the law come for the money, the farmer must decide who to trust. Defending a siege of his homestead, the farmer reveals a talent for gun-slinging that surprises everyone calling his true identity into question.
A bronc rider in denial about his fading rodeo career battles against brain injury and a sudden blizzard while reflecting on how it became so difficult to achieve his dreams.
After crossing the border illegally for work, Miguel, a hard-working father and devoted husband, finds himself wrongfully accused of murdering a former sheriff’s wife. After learning of his imprisonment, Miguel’s pregnant wife tries to come to his aid and lands in the hands of corrupt coyotes who hold her for ransom. Dissatisfied with the police department’s investigation, the former sheriff tries to uncover the truth about his wife’s death and discovers disturbing evidence that will destroy one family’s future, or tear another’s apart.
Set against the turbulent backdrop of 1870s Montana, in the moments before the execution of Isaac Broadway, he gives his estranged son, Henry, an impossible task: murder the man who framed him for a crime he didn’t commit. Intent on fulfilling his promise, Henry travels to the remote town of Trinity, where an unexpected turn of events traps him in town and leaves him caught between Gabriel Dove, the town’s upstanding new sheriff, and a mysterious figure named St. Christopher.
In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.
When the most wanted man in America surfaces in a small Kentucky town, his violent history -- and a blood-thirsty mob seeking vengeance and a king’s ransom -- soon follow. As brothers face off against one another and bullets tear the town to shreds, this lightning-fast gunslinger makes his enemies pay the ultimate price for their greed.
Karl Westover, an inexperienced farm boy, runs away after unintentionally killing a neighbor, whose family pursues him for vengeance. He meets Barbarosa, a gunman of near-mythical proportions, who is himself in danger from his father-in-law Don Braulio, a wealthy Mexican rancher. Don Braulio wants Barbarosa dead for marrying his daughter against the father's will. Barbarosa reluctantly takes the clumsy Karl on as a partner, as both of them look to survive the forces lining up against them.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."
In the 1860s, fiercely independent French-Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a journey with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen, attempting to forge a life together in the dusty town of Elk Flats, Nevada. When Holger decides to go fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, Vivienne must fend for herself, which isn't easy in a town controlled by a corrupt mayor.
A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.
One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?
At a Mexican ranch, fugitive O'Malley and pursuing Sheriff Stribling agree to help rancher Breckenridge drive his herd into Texas where Stribling could legally arrest O'Malley, but Breckenridge's wife complicates things.
After discovering a plot to haul stolen cattle in the middle of nowhere, a desperate and isolated lawman becomes the only thing standing between a group of dangerous rustlers and a clear run to the border.