THE STOLEN PLAY (1917):

Sylvia Smalley is the secretary of Charles Edmay, a distinguished, blind playwright. Leroux, a producer, is eager to buy the play that Edmay has just completed; but the playwright is reluctant to sell. Leroux sends Alice Morgan to steal the script, while he abducts Edmay and Sylvia. While Edmay is detained in the wine cellar, Leroux exercises his hypnotic powers over Sylvia, extracting a dictation of the entire play from her. Discovering that in a hypnotic state Sylvia has great dramatic powers, Leroux successfully casts her in the play's lead. 

DVD-r has English intertitles with hard-encoded French subtitles. Approx. 59 mins. See film sample for audio and video quality!

SHOES (1916):

Eva Meyer works in a five-and-dime store for $5 a week. At home, her mother takes in washing to help support three smaller children and a lazy, beer-drinking, novel-reading, good-for-nothing husband and father. For months, Eva has needed a pair of shoes. As the weeks pass, the necessity for shoes increases, until finally heavy rains set in and rot what little there is left of her bedraggled and worthless shoes. Eva brings her unopened pay envelope home to her mother every Saturday night; each time she's promised that "next week" she should have enough money for shoes. She has set her heart upon a pair that are displayed in a shop window she passes going to and from her work, but each week there is a new and valid reason for postponement: the rent must be paid; the merchants will no longer trust them for food; the worthless father is still out of work. All this time she sees the money she has earned go for beer, dime novels, and food to satisfy her shiftless father's desires. Finally, one Saturday night, she demands that he provide her with a pair of shoes. Her only solace is the retort from the man, who is her natural protector and supporter, that he needs shoes for himself. 

DVD-r has English intertitles with no subtitles. Approx. 49 mins. See film sample for audio and video quality!