The Midnight Message (Silent)

A widow's sewing machine breaks down, and, deprived of her tailoring income, her young son takes a job on the night shift to help out. One evening, while delivering a telegram to a wealthy family, he finds himself implicated as a suspect in a jewelry robbery. Hunted by the police, the boy sets off alone to pursue the thieves and attempt to clear his name.

Irish-born Creighton Hale performed on Broadway before starring in silents of the mid-to late teens and early 1920s. He's best known for his roles in D. W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm (1921) and Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary (1927). Paul Hurst was a prolific character actor, primarily of B-grade Westerns with the likes of John Wayne and Gary Cooper. He appeared in over 300 films, among them Gone With the Wind (1939) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). His directing work was relegated to the silent era but was well regarded.

BONUS:

Pippa Passes (1909): Directed by D. W. Griffith and based on a play by Robert Browning. Starring Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett.

• silent