The year 1914 in film involved some significant events, including the debut of Cecil B. DeMille as a director.
A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.
Arthur Benjamin Reeve was an American mystery writer. He is known best for creating the series character Professor Craig Kennedy, sometimes called "The American Sherlock Holmes", and Kennedy's Dr. Watson-like sidekick Walter Jameson, a newspaper reporter, for 18 detective novels. Reeve is famous mostly for the 82 Craig Kennedy stories, published in Cosmopolitan magazine between 1910 and 1918. These were collected in book form; with the third collection, the short stories were published grouped together as episodic novels. The 12-volume publication Craig Kennedy Stories was released during 1918; it reissued Reeve's books-to-date as a matched set.
Edward Phillips Oppenheim was an English novelist, a prolific writer of best-selling genre fiction, featuring glamorous characters, international intrigue and fast action. Notably easy to read, they were viewed as popular entertainments. He was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1927.
Alfred Edward Woodley Mason was an English author and politician. He is best remembered for his 1902 novel of courage and cowardice in wartime, The Four Feathers and is also known as the creator of Inspector Hanaud, a French detective who was an early template for Agatha Christie's famous Hercule Poirot.
Grace Cunard was an American actress, screenwriter and film director. During the silent era, she starred in over 100 films, wrote or co-wrote at least 44 of those productions, and directed no fewer than eight of them. In addition, she edited many of her films, including some of the shorts, serials, and features she developed in collaboration with Francis Ford. Her younger sister, Mina Cunard, was also a film actress.
Harold MacGrath was a bestselling and prolific American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He sometimes completed more than one novel per year for the mass market, covering romance, spies, mystery, and adventure.
Louis Joseph Vance was an American novelist, screenwriter and film producer. He created the popular character Michael Lanyard, a criminal-turned-detective known as The Lone Wolf.
Henry Alexander MacRae was a Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter during the silent era, working on many film serials for Universal Studios. One of a number of Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, MacRae was credited with many innovations in film production, including artificial light for interiors, the wind machine, double exposures and shooting at night.
Frank MacQuarrie was an American silent film actor.
Tarzan the Tiger (1929) is a Universal movie serial based on the novel Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It stars Frank Merrill as Tarzan, Natalie Kingston as Jane, and Al Ferguson. It was directed by Henry MacRae.
The Cinema Murder is a 1919 American silent drama film starring Marion Davies, adapted from the 1917 novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Graft is a 1915 American film serial directed by George Lessey and Richard Stanton featuring Harry Carey. This serial is considered to be lost.
The Million Dollar Mystery is a 23-chapter film serial released in 1914, directed by Howell Hansel, and starring Florence La Badie and James Cruze. It is presumed lost.
The Great Circus Mystery is a 1925 American adventure film serial directed by Jay Marchant.
The Bar C Mystery is a 1926 American silent Western film serial directed by Robert F. Hill. It is now considered to be lost.
The Gunsaulus Mystery is a 1921 American silent race film directed, produced, and written by Oscar Micheaux. The film was inspired by events and figures in the 1913-1915 trial of Leo Frank for the murder of Mary Phagan. The film is now believed to be lost. Micheaux remade the film 1935 as Murder in Harlem.
The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown is a 1921 British silent mystery film directed by Sinclair Hill and starring Ruby Miller, Annie Esmond and Clifford Heatherley. It was made by Stoll Pictures, and based on an 1896 novel The Mystery of Mr. Bernard Brown by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
A serial film,film serial, movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, generally advancing weekly, until the series is completed. Generally, each serial involves a single set of characters, protagonistic and antagonistic, involved in a single story, which has been edited into chapters after the fashion of serial fiction and the episodes cannot be shown out of order or as a single or a random collection of short subjects.
Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo is a 1915 spy novel by the British writer E. Phillips Oppenheim. The action takes place in Monaco, a favourite setting in the author's novels. Oppenheim was a pioneer of the modern spy genre, often giving his works a glamorous international setting. Although published in 1915, it was likely to have been written in 1914.
