The Crimson Stain Mystery

This looked like a promising feature. Since only parts remain, I can comment on them. I know that everything centers around a scientist who comes up with a formula he hopes will increase people's intelligence. While they become smarter, they are set on a road to criminality. We follow four test subjects. They must be occasionally hooked up to "the machine" to maintain their energy, even their lives. The Crimson Stain is a red mark around the eyes of the people who are part of the experiment. From the scenes that I watched it was evident that this was pretty well done and the acting better than that of the film's contemporaries. Too bad about lost films.

The Crimson Stain Mystery is a silent 1916 serial in which a scientist, Dr. Montrose (Thomas J. McGrane), creates a formula designed to make people super-intelligent; however, the experiment fails, turning his subjects into criminals, who form a gang led by 'The Crimson Stain', so called because of his glowing, red eyes. Out to avenge his father's murder, newspaper man Harold Stanley (Maurice Costello) pursues the gang, aided by his friend Robert Clayton (Eugene Strong), his girlfriend Florence (Dr. Montrose's daughter, played by Ethel Grandin) and detective Layton Parrish (John A. Milton).

Once thought to be lost, eleven reels of this serial were discovered in 'The Dawson Film Find' of 1978 (preserved by permafrost under an abandoned ice rink in Yukon, Canada) and have since been restored. I could only find part of one chapter to watch for free (I'm a cheapskate, but all of the restored reels can be bought or rented on The Serial Squadron website); from what I saw, this appears to be a fairly fun cliffhanger thriller, with a sneering villain (who I'm sure would swish a cape and twirl his moustache if he had them), gang members who need to be 'juiced up' with electricity to carry on living (one of whom is an alluring artist's model named Vanya Tosca, played by Olga Olonova), a pretty damsel in distress, and stoic heroes, though I was a bit weirded out by the fact that Dr. Montrose kisses his daughter full on the lips.