William V. Ranous Movies

The Proposal: The gentleman burglar walking with his lady love. They admire the grandeur and beauty of nature. He proposes and she accepts. She does...

A traveler stays the night at a rural inn, but gets no rest as he is tormented by various spectres and mysterious happenings.

An early film adaptation of the Bard's comic fantasy-- and perhaps the first screen adaptation of a Shakespeare play.

A political crime film in which a militant, anarchist father allows his political ideals to prevail over human dignity. The father uses his young...

Vitagraph production of Shakespeare's Richard III.

Biographical drama, adaptation of Shakespeare's play.

A short romantic drama in which a captain and his wife are separated by a shipwreck. The woman ends up on a desert island with another man, and they...

Macbeth usurps the Scottish throne by murdering his predecessor.

It is sometimes decidedly difficult to get a little privacy on shipboard. Several times Jack Hardy almost reaches the proposal point with Marion Van...

No matter how absorbed with affairs of state, Abraham Lincoln was always ready to give audience to his little son Tad. Little Tad, playing at the...

Much ado about a necklace - short film based on the story "The String of Pearls"

Becoming impatient waiting for patients, young Doctor Bob Lyons is about discouraged. To add to his misery, his sweetheart's father, Mr. Irving,...

Agnes Vernon is the daughter of an old prospector whose hard luck leads him to turn holdup. The father is hanged and the girl, unknowing the real...

Left with two small children, Mrs. Morgan finds it difficult to make both ends meet. Polly, her daughter, does the housework. Tommy is looking for a...

To start a little in advance of our story, Lord Rintoul, of the English nobility, finds a little Gypsy girl three years old, who had been deserted by...

Francesca, surrounded by ladies-in-waiting at the palace. Her father enters, and together they read a letter from Lanciotto, asking for the hand of...

An impressively tactile, if slightly over-ambitious, adaptation of King Lear from Vitagraph Studios.

Alixe is courted by many admirers. Her most persistent companion is Morton Shaw. Arlington Tappan also loves Alixe, and urges her to give up her...

In this Vitagraph short, anarchism threatens to ruin lives and families. Luigi and Rosa are a couple with an adorable child, but trouble is afoot...

Just as the bead clerk and his assistants are closing up the jewelry store for the day, a package containing a very costly necklace arrives by...