Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 7 (1914): August Releases

The Million Dollar Mystery continued its Monday release schedule. August 3rd saw the screening of Episode 7, The Doom of the Auto Bandits. Reviewers in general ignored it, for the novelty had worn off, and few wanted the task of dutifully reporting week after week the unreeling of this serial or that, at a time when new serials were springing up like mushrooms. However, a writer for The Moving Picture World did see Episode 7 and was bewildered by it all:

The Doom of the Auto Bandits is the special title this week, and the two reels give us a self-contained and exciting episode. This reviewer has not seen the three first numbers of this picture and has not got it, as a whole, quite clear from seeing the last four (this is the seventh installment). He can understand the episode and found enjoyment as well as suspense in it; but who the characters are he doesn't yet know.

Episode 8, The Wiles of a Woman, issued on August 10th, also left him in a fog:

This is No. 8 in The Million Dollar Mystery series. The incident is not self-contained and is left "in the air." Yet none can deny that the two reels interest. This reviewer knows nothing about the story, as a whole, and sees no reason why what is shown here should have a part in any story of a million dollars. None such will find in this part any reason why he should come to see the rest of it. It is, of course, finely acted and the photography is about perfect.

Episode 9, released on August 17th, was titled The Leap From an Ocean Liner, and it was the indefatigable Florence LaBadie who did the jump. At last, the reviewer for The Moving Picture World was beginning to understand the story:

This installment of two reels takes up the trail where they last let it drop and carries it on through one of the most interesting episodes it has yet pictured. It begins to have the quality that will strongly invite the spectator to keep his eye open to assure seeing the next installment. Most of the action is laid in mid-ocean, where Florence, whom the gang has captured as an insane person and taken on board of the George Washington, jumps overboard and swims to the Newfoundland fishing fleet - beautiful scenes of the fishing smacks out in the ocean are given. The photography is of the quality that helps much.

The Million Dollar Mystery continued its convoluted plot at the rate of two reels a week, each week through Monday, November 16th, when Episode 22, The Waterloo of the Conspirators, was flashed on the screen, and fans saw Jim Norton vanquish the evildoers and embrace Florence, and witnessed the reunion of Florence and her father. When the curtain came down on the final scene, all that remained was for the location of the million dollars to be revealed and a resolution of the romance between Jim Norton and Florence Gray, and that had to await the passage of over three months while contest entries were being evaluated and a resultant closing episode filmed. When all was said and done, the serial more than lived up to its name and earned more than the amount mentioned in its title.