The Washerwoman's War is a 1919 silent western about the title character's battle against the various men making her life difficult.
Social & External
The people behind it
Nell Shipman
In the Old West Charles Garvin and Clarice Winslow are happily engaged. One day artist, Ed Gardner arrives seeking lodging and is welcomed into Clarice's home, where he meets the young cowboy. However, when Charles must depart for a round-up, Ed begins to charm Clarice, who seems amused by his company and a triangle develops.
Mollie Owens, engaged to sheriff’s deputy Dick Calvert, is taken captive by outlaw Monk Turgis and imprisoned in the "death cabin” so called because everyone shunned it after of two mysterious murders were committed there. Turgis and his friend try to scare money out of Mollie's mother, but Dick sets out on their trail. He sees one of them enter the cabin and immediately investigates.
Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.
A lost film. Teddy Drake is a pleasure-seeking aristocrat who ends up expelled from his exclusive Fifth Avenue club for playing practical jokes and other rambunctious antics. He decides to reform his selfish ways and boards a train heading heading for the Southwest.
A girl's father cannot afford a train ticket, so he ships his daughter by Wells Fargo & Co. Express. He loses his money to a villain and cannot claim his "shipment." The villain attempts to claim her, but the Wells Fargo agent foils the plot and claims her himself.
The manager of the American oil company quits out of fear of El Jaguar, the bandit who is terrorizing the Mexican countryside, Phil Jordan is sent in his place. Phil arrives with his younger sister Nancy, when the bandit makes a unwanted pass towards the girl, Phil beats him, causing El Jaguar to vow revenge. Waiting until Phil's bride Beth arrives, El Jaguar captures all three Americans and sadistically forces Phil to choose between leaving with his sister or his wife. Beth volunteers to remain as a sacrifice, and Phil and Nancy ride off, soon to encounter a troop of rangers. They all rush back to rescue Beth, but before they arrive, the bandit is killed by a woman whom he had abducted and violated on her wedding night.
Dan Melton is in love with Daisy Dale, who, being of a coquettish disposition, permits herself to become infatuated with Soapy Smith, gentleman gambler. Sheriff Melton is greatly worried by the continual holdups committed by Black Jack, a desperado, who has become the terror of the mountains. His excursions in quest of the bandit compel him to neglect Daisy somewhat. One day Daisy meets with an accident while riding and applies for assistance at a lonely shack in the hills. To her astonishment Soapy Smith opens the door. She accepts his invitation to enter. Once she is inside, however, Soapy betrays his real character and attacks her. Daisy's screams are heard by Morristette, a Mexican, who rushes in and intervenes. Smarting under the blow Soapy deals him, he gallops to town and informs the sheriff. On arriving at the shack to rescue his sweetheart Melton finds that Soapy Smith and the long-sought desperado. Black Jack, are one and the same.
Left in the care of his half-breed brother, Buck, by his dying mother, Wallace Layson has no knowledge of his family history. His father, knowing that his son will inherit a ranch on his 21st birthday, tries to secure the property for himself by persuading a dance hall girl to come between the boy and his fiancée. When Buck learns of the plan he decides to foil it without his half-brother knowing.
Luke Drummond, popularly known as "Unlucky Luke," and Seth Powers, his friend and chum, have a mock quarrel over a new school teacher as to who saw her first. They roll in the dirt to the disgust of the lady herself, who witnesses the bout, though she does not know the cause. Luke and Seth, in common with many other citizens, are unsettled by the charm and grace of the new teacher. The two young men vie with each other as to which shall escort her home from school, leading to humorous situations.
Infamous Mexican bandit Pancho López recognizes Gilbert Jones as the man who once saved his life; therefore, when Jones is in danger of losing his ranch for default of mortgage payment, López determines to help him. At the same time, Morgan Pell, intending to cheat Jones out of his potentially oil-rich property, offers him a sum of money, which Jones conditionally accepts.
15 chapter serial. Gideon Trask and his henchmen at the saloon in Arkansas City covet the mineral survey of the Louisiana Territory made for Napoleon before the sale of the Territory to the United States. This is in possession of the Heath Brothers, who seek to use it in staking their land when the Oklahoma territory, last of the Louisiana tract to be released by the Government, is opened to Homesteaders.
Jeanne La Roche lives alone with her brother in the great northwestern country. Jacques is a ne'er-do-well and has fallen under the suspicion of the mounted police, two of whom are dispatched to arrest him for robbery. The stolen goods are found in his home. Jeanne is too young to be left in their lonely cabin, so she is taken to the post, where the wife of the proprietor welcomes her and gives her a home. Several years later, Donald McLean wins her for his wife. Meantime Jacques escapes from prison, eludes his pursuers and takes refuge in McLean's home.
Jim Blake, the playboy son of a New York millionaire, heads west to prove himself a man. He goes to work on his father's ranch in Wyoming, and eventually wins over the locals by turning the tables on a town bully and trying to collect damages from a railroad magnate, whose trains have killed many of the Blake ranch's cattle. When the railroad refuses to pay, Jim comes up with a plan that will make them pay far more than they originally had to. Problems arise when he falls in love with Alice, the railroad magnate's daughter.
Homesteaders battle a cattle baron, who is trying to drive them off the lands they have settled on so his cattle will be able to graze on it.
In an early California settlement, Juanita, a dance hall queen of Castilian ancestry, knifes her lover, Jim Brandt, the dance hall owner, when she catches him embracing a new dancer.
A couple of rowdy gamblers, a cowboy, and a woman undercover.
Returning to his father's cattle ranch after the excitement of serving in combat overseas, Bud McGraw becomes restless, and his father decides to send him to an old friend who commands the Border Police in Texas. On the way he meets Peggy Hughes, accompanying her Uncle Graham, a customs inspector, and he retrieves her hat from the rails of a train. At the headquarters, numerous scrapes and fights win him the admiration of, and friendship with, the men. Lazaro, a Secret Service agent, invites Mrs. Graham and Peggy, who are staying at the border station, for an automobile ride, and they are captured by bandits and held for ransom. Bud and his pals deliver the ransom and discover that Lazaro is the bandit chief. Lazaro refuses to release Peggy, but a jealous rival, Nita de Garma, causes his downfall and shoots him as the Border Police arrive to rescue the party.
Trying to trick Ma (Lydia Knott) and Mary Winters (Allene Ray) into selling their rundown ranch, which will be in the path of a future railroad, Underwood (Charles K.French) hires Keno Creager (Albert Smith) to impersonate Jimmy Winters, not seen by his mother and sister for many years.
Immediate Lee, employed on the ranch owned by one Masters, is discharged by the manager through the influence of one of his men, who is in the brand blotting game with Masters. Beulah, a dance-hall girl, has attracted the attention of Hurley, a brand blotter, but prefers Lee. Hurley entraps Lee and cuts his mouth open with a wide gash, which leaves a permanent scar. Lee vows vengeance and follows the man all over the country. He at last meets him face to face, but Hurley is saved by the intercession of Beulah. He later is killed in a fierce encounter. The brand blotters are discovered and punished by the aid of Immediate Lee, and Beulah receives the reward of loyalty and devotion by becoming Lee's wife.
A western settlement of pioneer descendants is threatened with the loss of its water supply through the encroachments of nearby townspeople.
A scorned woman enlists the help of five strangers to execute a bank robbery. Tensions rise as the men anxiously await her arrival with the money, leaving the crew to wonder if they have been betrayed.
A cattle-vs.-sheepman feud loses Connie Dickason her fiance, but gains her his ranch, which she determines to run alone in opposition to Frank Ivey, "boss" of the valley, whom her father Ben wanted her to marry. She hires recovering alcoholic Dave Nash as foreman and a crew of Ivey's enemies. Ivey fights back with violence and destruction, but Dave is determined to counter him legally... a feeling not shared by his associates. Connie's boast that, as a woman, she doesn't need guns proves justified, but plenty of gunplay results.
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?
Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.
A rancher, his shady bride and his one-armed brother fight amid carpetbaggers in Texas.
During the war for Texas independence, one man leaves the Alamo before the end (chosen by lot to help others' families) but is too late to accomplish his mission, and is branded a coward. Since he cannot now expose a gang of turncoats, he infiltrates them instead. Can he save a wagon train of refugees from Wade's Guerillas?
The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.
Pacer Burton, a young man of mixed Kiowa and white heritage, is caught between two worlds as conflict erupts between Native Americans and white settlers in Texas.
Searching for a doctor who can help him get his son to speak again--the boy hadn't uttered a word since he saw his mother die in the fire that burned down the family home--a Confederate veteran finds himself facing a 30-day jail sentence when he's unfairly accused of starting a brawl in a small town. A local woman pays his fine, providing that he works it off on her ranch. He soon finds himself involved in the woman's struggle to keep her ranch from a local landowner who wants it--and whose sons were responsible for the man being framed for the fight.
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.
In 1850s Oregon, a businessman is torn between his love of two very different women and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
A gunfighter and a cowboy help a Mexican girl avenge the land-related murder of her parents.
A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.
A con man heading west to search for gold teams up with a pair of scheming brothers along the way. The trio soon find themselves in the middle of a feud between two rival families and two underhanded land developers.
An authoritarian rancher rules an Arizona county with her private posse of hired guns. When a new Marshal arrives to set things straight, the cattle queen finds herself falling for the avowedly non-violent lawman. Both have itchy-fingered brothers, a female gunman enters the picture, and things go desperately wrong.
A naive traveler in Laredo gets involved in a poker game between the richest men in the area, jeopardizing all the money he has saved for the purpose of settling with his wife and child in San Antonio.
When Edward Creighton leads the construction of the Western Union to unite East with West, he hires a Western reformed outlaw and a tenderfoot Eastern surveyor. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation in 2000.
American gunslinger Sean Rafferty—aka The Montana Kid—is unable to find someone to duel in a Canadian town where no one understands the brutal code of the American Wild West.
Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.
