The Diamond from the Sky | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jacques Jaccard William Desmond Taylor |
Written by | Roy L. McCardell |
Starring | Lottie Pickford Irving Cummings William Russell |
Production company | American Film Manufacturing Company - Flying "A" Studios |
Distributed by | American Film Manufacturing Company |
Release date |
|
Running time | 900 minutes (30 episodes) |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Budget | $800,000 [1] |
The Diamond from the Sky is a 1915 American silent adventure-film serial directed by Jacques Jaccard and William Desmond Taylor and starring Lottie Pickford, Irving Cummings, and William Russell.
No copies of this serial's "chapters" have been found, so the overall production is currently classified as a lost film. [2]
The prologue in the serial's first episode, "A Heritage of Hate", depicts the discovery of a spectacular diamond inside a meteorite, a gem that later becomes the property of the Stanley family, who call their heirloom "The Diamond From the Sky". The remainder of the first chapter portrays the intense rivalry between Colonel Arthur Stanley and Judge Lamar Stanley, Virginia aristocrats and descendants of Lord Arthur Stanley, 200 years later.
When a girl is born to the young wife of Colonel Arthur Stanley, the latter, to retain an earldom and "The Diamond From the Sky," buys a new born Gypsy baby boy and substitutes it for his own babe. Judge Lamar Stanley visits Colonel Arthur Stanley's home to see the child just as Hagar, the gypsy woman, bursts into the room to demand her boy, and the colonel falls unconscious across the library table.
W. D. Taylor, director of "The Diamond from the Sky," the North American Film Corporation's $800,000 continued photoplay, had a narrow escape from death a few days ago, when he accidentally stepped on a heavy charged electric wire. The members of the company were at work in a tunnel, in which one of the scenes takes place, when Taylor, walking in advance of the players, stepped on the wire, which was uncovered. Luckily, a physician employed in the mining camp nearby had come over to watch the taking of the scene. He offered immediate assistance. [1]
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