BEATRICE FAIRFAX
International Film Service (Hearst)/Wharton 1916 / 15 Episodes
Heroine: Beatrice Fairfax (Grace Darling)
Her Pal: Jimmy Barton (Harry Fox)
Supporting Cast: Nigel Barrie, Betty Howe, Elsie Baker, Mae Hopkins, Mary Cranston,
Robin Townley, Olive Thomas
Directed by: Theodore and Leo Wharton
Plot: Directed by the Wharton brothers, who filmed The Exploits of Elaine, featuring Grace Darling as the "advice to the lovelorn" columnist turned crimefighter and Harry Fox as her comical and clever assistant Jimmy. Beatrice and her friend and not-so-secret admirer Jimmy Barton investigate calls for help (which usually arrive by handwritten letter to Beatrice’s New York Evening Journal office) and escape exotic perils and dangers. Episodes include exciting and fun stories of baby-napping, blackmail, jewel thievery, disguise, counterfeiting, and the long-unseen episode featuring entrancing cult starlet Olive Thomas and the real New York Yankees and Giants playing a game in the Polo Grounds. Olive is onscreen for almost her entire episode.
Notes: W. R. Hearst’s film company developed these adventures around a famous writer who did not really exist. Beatrice Fairfax was the house name of the advice to the lovelorn columnist of Hearst's New York Evening Journal.
Episode 1: The Missing Watchman
Beatrice and Jimmy fight bank robbers and attempt to clear an innocent bank guard's name.
Episode 2:
The Adventure of the Jealous Wife
featuring Elsie Baker and Otto Hahn
"My husband received a letter then went out tonight and took our savings. Could he have another wife?" -- Marie Bocetti
Jimmy adopts a disguise to infiltrate the dangerous Black Hand syndicate, currently blackmailing a famous violinist and threatening New York with homemade bombs.
Episode 3: Billy's Romance
featuring Little John Sullivan and Dick Stewart
"I am 14 and learning telegraphy and in love with a girl 12. When can I propose?" -- Billy Dean Schuyler
The romantic dreams of a 14 year old telegraph boy and the revenge of an escaped convict intersect.
Episode 4: The Stone God
featuring Nigel Barrie, Mike Rale and Betty Howe
"My father has quarreled with my fiancé. Should we elope?" -- Dorothy McRay
This story concerns a forbidden marriage, a murderous revenge plot by an Indian prince, and an English explorer dared to defiled a temple and steal a sacred idol.
Episode 5: Mimosa San
featuring Yumiko Nagahara, Frank Honda and Elsie Baker
"My lover follows another." -- Mimosa San
Beatrice and Jimmy visit the Nipponese Tea Garden and investigate the theft of the formula for a secret weapon by foreign spies.
Episode 6: The Forbidden Room
featuring Betty Howe, George Connor and Dick Bennard
“I am to be married today. My fiancee did not come to the church.” -- John Miles
As counterfeit bills appear all around town, a kitten discovers a hidden door which a hired girl realizes holds a dreadful secret.
Episode 7: A Name for a Baby
featuring Allan Murnane
“I must have a name for my baby. Will you help me? His father, a well-known layer, is going to marry a girl who doesn’t know.” -- Madge Minturn
In a plotline daring for its time, an unwed mother tries to convince the wealthy father of her baby to do right by it. The rich cad, who will go to any length to prevent dishonor, has other plans for the infant. Drama and violence ensue as Jimmy relentlessly pursues and dukes it out with an unsavory baby-napper and rich Waldo is brought to the altar! Interestingly, Mary Cranston, who plays the baby’s mother in this episode, was not an actress and won her role in a contest!
Episode 8: At the Ainsley Ball
featuring Mae Hopkins
“Is there any way an honest man can prevent his girl from falling in love with a fascinating foreigner?” -- Robert Wells
Jimmy and Beatrice dress up and attend a costume ball at a mansion to try and catch jewel thieves and end up in a crazy car chase.
Episode 9: Outside the Law
featuring Mae Hopkins
“You have helped so many women. Can you find time to come to one who is truly desperate?” -- Madeline Grey
An unscrupulous tabloid publisher acquires a woman’s romantic letters and tries to blackmail her for sexual favors. Beatrice sneaks into the nasty old walrus’s flat to try and recover them but finds herself trapped in his closet when he and his armed bodyguard return home.
Episode 10: Play Ball
featuring Olive Thomas and Nigel Barrie
“Your ball-playing lover has another girl. If you doubt it, watch at the Hilton Inn tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.” -- A Friend
Crooks intending to fix the game by kidnapping Olive's pitcher boyfriend try to convince her he's seeing another woman -- and when Olive goes to investigate, she ends up in big trouble as well. Shot at the original Polo Grounds baseball field in New York, only a few years after it opened. Can Beatrice and Jimmy rescue the pair in time to see the big game won?
Episode 11: The Wages of Sin
featuring Betty Howe and Nigel Barrie
"I am betwixt love and duty. Please come and tell me what to do." -- Jane Hamlin
A deceptive boyfriend decides to team up with a thief to rob an inventor’s daughter of her father’s secrets -- by posing as the old man’s ghost!
Episode 12: Curiosity
featuring George Connor and Dick Stewart
"I have just learned that my husband is a convict. I still love him. What should I do?" -- Gladys Hanson
A young wife suspects her husband of crooked dealings and finds he is in league with a gang of crooks mysteriously transporting coffins from wagon to wagon in the woods. Beatrice and Jiimmy try to infiltrate the gang, Jimmy in disguise as an old washerwoman.
Episode 13: The Ringer
"I am the stout lady of a traveling show. My fiance, the dwarf, disappeared four days ago. Yesterday he returned but would give me no explanation. Please write me c/o The Fair Grounds." -- Cutie Brown
Jimmy investigates a report of a drugged race horse while Beatrice follows up on a letter from the “stout lady” of a circus and her missing midget boyfriend and everything comes together at the local fairgrounds and (rigged?) horse race.
Episode 14: The Hidden Menace
featuring Betty Howe
"Shall I give up my fiance because I may go insane like mother?" -- Alice Masters
The guardian of an heiress tries to drive her insane and employs hallucinatory skullduggery and murder to do so. Jimmy tries to solve the locked room mystery while Beatrice follows up on the poor girl’s story and it all finishes up with a genuine and suspenseful Scooby-Doo ending!
Episode 15: Wristwatches
featuring Evelyn Farris and Wellington Playter
"Last night he kissed me. Today he is gone without a word. What should I do?" -- Dorothy Dane
Beatrice and Jimmy investigate reports of smuggling by the sea and get more than they bargain for when they investigate a secret passageway at the bottom of a mysterious well.
“I have over 5000 DVDs in my collection and BEATRICE FAIRFAX is my favorite!” -- Customer Bill W.
BEATRICE FAIRFAX: THE DVD
The complete 15-Episode series
View Series Description & Photos
International Film Service (Hearst)/Wharton 1916 / 15 Episodes / Girl Reporter Series
Heroine: Beatrice Fairfax (Grace Darling)
Her Pal: Jimmy Barton (Harry Fox)
Supporting Cast: Nigel Barrie, Betty Howe, Elsie Baker, Mae Hopkins, Mary Cranston, Robin Townley, Olive Thomas
Produced by Theodore and Leopold Wharton
Historical Consultant Terry Harbin
Restored by Eric Stedman
Filmed in Ithaca, New York in 1916
Published by The Serial Squadron
An absolutely amazing find--a lost silent serial from 1916 now viewable for the first time in over 90 years! And transferred in sparkling, sometimes pristine quality, from the Marion Davies Collection's original nitrate film negative! Includes all the restored and newly scored episodes described on this page (about 7 hours of content) plus a mini-documentary about the real-life Beatrice Fairfax and her column as well as the fictional character’s history on Disk 1.
Includes fourteen 25-minute episodes from the long-lost 1916 series with a new original music score. 13 are complete and one (Ep. 3) is almost-complete, the last 1 minute has been reconstructed (Episode 1, which originally included a cameo by William Randolph Hearst himself, is not known to exist, but a re-creation of it by "Beatrice" herself, from an existing plot summary, is included). A vast amount of work was put into this series and we are sure you will enjoy it. Don’t miss Warner Oland’s cameo in one episode as a police commissioner!
DVD Contents:
Beatrice Fairfax Mini-documentary written by Raymond William Stedman, a custom-made 9 minute mini-documentary tracing Beatrice's history from newspaper feature to the screen, radio, comics and the stage, narrated by Joel Talmadge, as is an audio re-creation of the lost episode, narrated by Kate Huston with piano accompaniment by Eric Stedman.
Episode 1: The Missing Watchman (Short audio re-creation of the episode)
Episode 2: The Adventure of the Jealous Wife featuring Elsie Baker
Episode 3: Billy's Romance featuring Little John Sullivan and Dick Stewart
Episode 4: The Stone God featuring Nigel Barrie, Mike Rale and Betty Howe
Episode 5: Mimosa San featuring Yumiko Nagahara, Frank Honda and Elsie Baker
Episode 6: The Forbidden Room featuring Betty Howe, George Connor and Dick Bennard
Episode 7: A Name for a Baby featuring Allan Murnane
Episode 8: At the Ainsley Ball featuring Mae Hopkins
Episode 9: Outside the Law featuring Mae Hopkins
Episode 10: Play Ball featuring Olive Thomas and Nigel Barrie
Episode 11: The Wages of Sin featuring Betty Howe and Nigel Barrie
Episode 12: Curiosity featuring George Connor and Dick Stewart
Episode 13: The Ringer
Episode 14: The Hidden Menace featuring Betty Howe
Episode 15: Wristwatches featuring Evelyn Farris and Wellington Playter
The image quality here is amazing, with excellent midtones, looking very much as it did when first released. This is a wonderful thing for a film that is now 96 years old. Reassembled and tinted according to the original instructions (according to notes written on the negative itself!) and with a re-created missing chapter, new musical scores by Eric Stedman, and a new recording of "Beatrice Fairfax, Tell Me What to Do" By Laura Bowman.
All unseen for over 90 years and beautifully restored!
2-DVD set, 14 full episodes + extras, Original color tints, all-new musical scores
"I received my copy of the BEATRICE FAIRFAX DVD last week and watched it all. I loved it, loved it, loved it!!! Silent films have now become my favorite form of entertainment! In them, people are generally more courteous to each other, there's no swearing, you get to hear wonderful music accompaniments and look at the old cars and styles! Wow! The way the ending was reconstructed at the end of Billy's Romance was brilliant! I appreciate the love and care that has been put into restoring this special art form." -- customer Maria Davis, Illinois