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The Seekers
(1916) United States of America
B&W : Five reels
Directed by Otis Turner
Cast: Flora Parker de Haven [Ruth Heck], Paul Byron [Lem Heck], Charles Mailes [Reverend Timothy Hood], Edward Hearn [Sheriff John Mount], Edwin Booth (Edwin B. Tilton), Florence Noar, Mary DuCello (Countess Du Cello)
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated [Red Feather Photoplays]. / Scenario by Otis Turner, from a screen story Olga Printzlau. Cinematography by Stephen S. Norton. / Released 17 July 1916. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Religious.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Ruth and Lem Heck are orphans. Ruth is a nurse in a small town populated by a religious sect called “The Seekers.” Their object is to seek those that are needy and administer to their needs. Ruth and Lem live with Rev. Hood. Lem is apprentice in a machine shop. Two crooks in the machine shop rob the village bank with Lem’s tools, which they stole. Lem is accused and sentenced to jail for fifteen years. Three years pass. Ruth laments the absence of her brother, whose health is failing. Rev. Timothy Hood heeds the call of another little village of the same sect to send them a nurse and sends Ruth. She arrives at the little village of Canaan Mountain and is met by Sheriff John Mount, the son of Rev. Israel Mount, with whom she is to live. One Sabbath a drunken brute is abusing his wife at the door of the church. John, who is trying to aid the wife, is about to be shot by the husband, when he is saved by Ruth. John and Ruth help the wife, and gain her friendship. Later the sheriff and Ruth become engaged. Lem, the brother, is shipped out of jail by an old convict, who places him in a huge packing box which he is filling. Lem makes his escape from the baggage train and he meets Ruth in the woods. A gossip sees them in each other’s arms and spreads the news that Ruth is untrue to John, her betrothed. He refuses to believe the tales. Ruth hides Lem in the barn and continues to visit him at night. John is beginning to get suspicious of her actions. It happens that Ruth is compelled to borrow fifty dollars from Rev. Mount, and signs a note for it, promising to work off the debt. She hies away to the barn and John follows her and sees her give Lem the money. He confronts them, and Ruth tells the truth. They plead for liberty, but John's sense of duty is greater, and he starts to take Lem back. The men fight, and, as John is about to overpower Lem, Ruth strikes him over the head with an iron chain, knocking him unconscious. Ruth helps her brother to escape, and when she returns to the barn she finds it in flames. She rescues John, who tells the crowd of villagers who have gathered that he knocked the lamp over by accident. Several months pass. Ruth works off the debt, and the lovers are estranged. The customary time arrives to send a young couple to another part of the mountains to populate a new settlement. The couple are chosen by lottery. John is the young man chosen and Rev. Mount realizes that Ruth and John are torn with anxiety as to who will be the chosen wife. When the day comes the maidens cast their names in the box, and the Rev. Mount so fixes the lottery that Ruth’s slip is picked. In a big city Lem is at work in a printing shop. At every sound he starts guiltily, thinking that someone will arrest him. A man rushes in with a slip of paper and tells Lem to rush it out in type for the next edition. Lem reads the paper, and it is an account of his acquittal and the full confession of the two crooks who robbed the bank. The State has pardoned his escape and only want news of his whereabouts. Lem is happy that he is at last free. Ruth and John continue on their way over the mountains in the old buggy.
Survival status: The film is presumed lost: Print exists in the Library of Congress film archive [incomplete (reel one only)].
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 31 May 2020.
References: Hirschhorn-Universal p. 23 : MovPicStories-19160728 pp. 18-21 : Website-IMDb.
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