A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Featuring:
Charles Bartlett, Phyllis Gordon, Richard Stanton
Directed by:
Henry MacRae
Release Date:
May 17, 1913
Original Title:
In the Secret Service
Genres:
Western
Production Companies:
Bison Motion Pictures
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
US: NR
Runtime: 10
General Gordon, of the Federal army, receives a message from General Grant, telling him to intercept important dispatches "from Lee to Webber, carried over wires" in Gordon's vicinity. Lieutenant Barrett assumes the task, takes his instruments and sets out. Colonel Webber, of the Confederate army, has a daughter Edith. Lieutenant Fairfax aspires to her hand, but his attentions only annoy her.
General Gordon, of the Federal army, receives a message from General Grant, telling him to intercept important dispatches "from Lee to Webber, carried over wires" in Gordon's vicinity. Lieutenant Barrett assumes the task, takes his instruments and sets out. Colonel Webber, of the Confederate army, has a daughter Edith. Lieutenant Fairfax aspires to her hand, but his attentions only annoy her. Barrett taps the wires, but is seen by a Confederate officer and shot. The officer creeps up to him, thinking him dead, and Barrett suddenly shoots, kills him, and takes his uniform. He finds some plans in the dead man's pockets addressed to Col. Webber and copies them. He ties the copied information on his horse and starts the animal toward the Federal camp. He then mounts the Confederate's horse and soon meets Edith. She, seeing a wounded Confederate officer, sympathizes with him and takes him to her father's home. Meanwhile the horse reaches the Federal camp and Gordon gets the message and plans. Barrett meets Webber and Fairfax, and gives Webber the original plans. Edith binds Barrett's wounded band and the handsome couple are mightily attracted to each other. The household retires for the night and Barrett prepares some dummy dispatches. For seals he uses candle wax and the blood from a cut finger. He then enters the Colonel's room, changes the dummy dispatches for real ones. On the following morning Webber, Fairfax and others depart for the front and Barrett is left with Edith. By this time he is thoroughly in love with the girl and he leaves her with genuine regrets. Riding to the dead officer he dons his own garments and rides safely to the Federal lines. That night Edith takes a message that the Federals are advancing. She gets her horse and rides madly to her father's camp, where Barrett's treachery is discovered. The Confederates fill the trenches with dummy soldiers. When the Federals charge they are overwhelmed by the Confederates. Barrett's troops are beaten back. The retreating Federals decide to surprise the town where Webber lives. The Colonel, Edith and Fairfax barricade the house, hut Fairfax is fatally wounded. The Colonel also is badly wounded. Barrett gives Edith his coat and hat, telling her to save her father. As they are about to go, Barrett is shot in the head and passes, away in the arms of Edith.
Director:
Henry MacRae
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.