Volume II: Filmography

THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR

June 19, 1914 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (993 feet)

Character: "Thrilling love drama"

Scenario: Philip Lonergan

Cast: Arthur Bauer (John Sinclair, a banker), Mignon Anderson (Ruth, Sinclair's daughter), Harry Benham (George Travis, the man without fear), George Harris (Stevens, a wealthy suitor), Lydia Mead (maid in Sinclair's house), Joe Flamont (gardener), N.S. Woods (groom), Eugene Redding (Brescia, an anarchist), Leo Wirth (chauffeur), Irving Cummings

ARTICLE, The New Rochelle Pioneer, October 10, 1914:

"Cleveland Moffatt, one of America's prominent writers, fraternized with Harry Benham, Wednesday, interviewing him for an article soon to appear, featuring 'Handsome Harry' in a recent Thanhouser release, The Man Without Fear. By the way, it was in this script that Harry showed a little fear, for he almost lost a leg in the coal scoop at a hoist on the bay. Harry was supposed to have been dumped into the hold of a collier and the scoop was supposed to take him up to the 'dump' and thus bring him to freedom, and everything worked fine until Harry was about forty feet in the air and the scoop began to open. Harry felt his baggage had been checked clear through. He struggled to get a grasp on the hoist chains and succeeded as the coal dropped to the collier. Benham was limp when the scene stopped. But he emphatically stated that there would be no retake, for he had a wife and two small children at home that needed the guiding hand of a daddy."

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, June 20, 1914:

"George Travis did not know what fear meant. When he was discovered in his love for Ruth Sinclair, his millionaire employer's daughter, and fired on the spot, this did not bother him. The first time he ever had felt a cold shiver down his spine was when an anarchist's note fell into his hands, and proof of a plot to kill John Sinclair stared him in the face. That same hour found Travis a prisoner in the hands of the gunmen. He was thrust into a shack in the coal yards, his wrists bound. Travis kept cool - and worked at the ropes. Inch by inch he slipped himself free. But how to escape from the gang outside? A coal scoop swung forward in midair, lowering itself. He crawled stealthily toward it. Now he could grasp it. The next moment he had clambered aboard, and, by the time the men in the yards below were aware of his movements, the scoop carried him to safety in the coal car, which then ran down the track.

"The railroad took him within an eighth of a mile of the Sinclair grounds. At that moment, he knew, Brescia, the anarchist, was prowling about the house of the woman for whom he, Travis, gladly would have died. He hailed a passing motorcar and bade the chauffeur drive like the wind. He reached Ruth barely in time. Wresting the gun from Brescia, Travis felled him. He was unbinding the girl from the garden chair, where the ruffian had roped her for execution, when Sinclair came upon the scene. Travis, his face grimy with coal soot, and clothing gray with dust from his frantic race with death, told his story. Sinclair said nothing. But he smiled - such a smile as few had ever seen on his usually forbidding features - and placed Ruth's hand in that of Travis."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, June 27, 1914: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

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