The Temple Of Dusk (1918)

The Flash of an Emerald

The picture starts with Robert Warwick walking into the office of director Albert Capellani (the film's actual director). Capellani offers him the role of a heavy and hands him the script. The next four reels show Warwick playing a Raffles-like character, an ingenious crook who moves through society, committing robberies and even murder.

Destruction

Fernande marries a man and schemes to get his wealth when his expected death occurs. But he dies before he can change his will. She next tries to kill the son who inherits, but he outfoxes her.

Moral Fibre

Jared Wolcott, storekeeper in a small country town, lives with his young sister, Marion. He succumbs to the flirtations of a Mrs. Elmore from a wealthy summer resort, and when he proposes and learns she is married he commits suicide. Marion vows to avenge her brother, and years later, as a successful illustrator in New York, she is engaged to illustrate George Elmore's latest novel. At the Elmore country home, she leads Mrs. Elmore to believe she has won her husband's love, although she is romantically involved with John Corliss. The revelation that Corliss is Mrs. Elmore's brother leads her to forgo her revenge, and disclosing her identity to the family, she leaves. Corliss follows, and they are united.

Jealousy

Yvonne, proprietor of a Paris gown shop, marries Pierre, a poor artist, concealing from him an affair she had with Rigaud, an elderly boulevardier who bought the shop for her.

The First Kiss

The Talbots, formerly one of the Eastern Shore's first families, have gone to seed: Pap is a drunk, soddenly decaying in his ruined ancestral home, and three of his sons (William, Carol, and Ezra) are lazy, shiftless young men. Mulligan, Pap's second son who supports the entire family by oyster fishing, falls in love with wealthy Anna Lee, but when he first kisses her, she calls him "white trash."

The Big Fight

Based on the David Belasco stage production of the Max Marcin play in which heavyweight-champion Jack Dempsey played the role of the fighter, Tiger: This "behind-the-scenes look of a heavyweight-championship fight" looks much like all of the other boxing films in which the Champ gets involved in a frame-up and is asked to take a dive.

The Dance of Death

In this apparently lost film, a beautiful dancer's sexual allure is used by an evil cripple to entice men to their deaths. Falling in love with one of the potential victims, she is told by the cripple that he will set her free if her lover, actually a murderer himself, survives and escapes a bizarre labyrinthe which runs beneath the cripple's house.

The Claws of the Hun

An American munitions manufacturer and his son become ensnarled with enemy agents from Germany during the First World War.

French Heels

Returning from France after the war, John Tabor informs Palma May of her brother's death and offers the penniless girl his help, but she refuses it, preferring to work as a cabaret dancer. Later, John and Palma meet again, marry, and go west to manage a lumber camp, as instructed by John's wealthy father, Jarvis Tabor. Displeased by John's choice of wife, the elder Tabor tests the couple with difficult living conditions, which eventually discourage Palma, and she accepts the party invitation of Keith Merwyn, manager of the cabaret where she starred. Meanwhile, Merwyn effects a disturbance among the lumbermen, endangering John.

The Lord Loves the Irish

Miles Machree (J. Warren Kerrigan) meets Irish-American Sheila Lynch (Fritzi Brunette) when she travels through Ireland with her father (James O. Barrows). Soon after the Lynch's return to the States, Miles follows, and through his uncle's connections, gets a job on the New York City police force.

Madame du Barry

After Jeanette becomes the mistress of the ambitious Jean du Barry, he marries her off to one of his cousins so that she has an entre to the royal court. She soon becomes the favorite of the King and Jean du Barry becomes a regular around the court too. But all this is disturbed when Madame du Barry falls for Conte Brissac of the King's Guard. Jean du Barry's attempts to expose her affair only get him banished from the court.

The Cave Girl

Margot Sperry, who keeps house for her guardian, a professor who wants to revert to primitive modes of living, finds it difficult to find food in the winter wilderness and resorts to pilfering from the Bates's winter camp. Divvy, engaged to a girl he does not love, meets Margot on one of her raids and falls in love with her. Baptiste, a half-breed employed by the Bates family, is discharged for stealing and burns the camp, driving the family to refuge with Margot. Elsie, hoping to regain Divvy's affections, dresses in boyish clothes similar to Margot's. Joining forces with Baptiste, they capture Margot, and Baptiste takes her in a canoe downstream. Realizing her mistake, Elsie warns Divvy, who bests the half-breed and then rescues Margot from the falls. A lost film.