The Midnight Limited (Silent)

Alan Bennett, a drifter and small-time crook, stops off at a lonely railroad station and decides to rob the safe. He scuffles with the elderly stationmaster, Sam Foster, who promptly suffers a stroke that leaves him paralyzed. The pair is then discovered by Foster's granddaughter, Mary. Overcome by the girl's beauty, Alan introduces himself as a friend of her grandfather's and volunteers to take over Sam's job until he can recover. The pair live in a semblance of domestic bliss until some of Alan's old friends from the wrong side of the tracks show up. They want his help robbing the gold shipment coming in on the Midnight Limited. Now the former safecracker must choose between his new life with innocent Mary, who is still unaware of his shady past, and one final job that will leave him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

The Midnight Limited boasts spectacular action train footage using real locomotives and scenery. Director Oscar Apfel is best known for making The Squaw Man (1914) for producer Cecil B. DeMille. Leading man Gaston Glass became a TV executive in his later years, producing Peyton Place and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea among many other programs. He is the father of composer Paul Glass. Wanda Hawley played Rudolph Valentino's love interest in The Young Rajah (1922). Ashton Dearholt (here billed as Richard Holt) was a close personal friend of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, and later produced The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) movie serial based on Burroughs' most famous creation.

BONUS: Eastbound (1930): From Seattle's docks to the windy streets of Chicago, take a transcontinental journey on the North Coast Limited in this vintage short subject.

• silent