Writing
Manon Lescaut is a 1914 American silent drama film directed by Herbert Hall Winslow and starring Lina Cavalieri, Lucien Muratore and Dorothy Arthur. It is an adaptation of the Abbé Prévost's novel Manon Lescaut (1731). It is now considered a lost film.
Glory Moore, a young girl, finds herself left unprovided for after her father's death, as the farm has to be sold to pay his debts.
Grace Penrose (Fenwick) is established as a "vampire"—a femme fatale type character of the era—due to heredity. Seeking a change from city life, she retires to a mountain lodge. She encounters married man John Winthrop and becomes obsessed with stealing him from his wife, Beth. The husband leaves his wife for Grace. The wife, however, seeks help from the local female mayor, whose own son was previously victimized by Grace. The townspeople, led by the mayor, take action against Grace. The film concludes with the villagers taking Grace to be tarred and feathered while the husband begs for, and is granted, forgiveness.
In the early eighteenth century, pirate captain Jean Lafitte fights a rival pirate and wins a treasure and a beautiful female captive. Although the girl offers herself to Lafitte to save her English lover, Lafitte makes him walk the plank. The girl then places a curse on Lafitte and his descendants, preventing them from ever knowing the true love of woman. Two hundred years later, in the West Antilles, painter Paul Winthrop poses Joe, a pearl diver, as a pirate. Upon seeing the completed painting, each envisions the earlier situation. Later, Joe finds the buried treasure and sails to New York, where he learns that the portrait has also attracted wealthy Lily Demorest and her suitor, Robert Spurr, a "financial pirate."
Jerry Warner (Barnes) and Edith Somers (Breamer) are in love, but her father Judge Somers (Marshall) will not allow them to marry because he sees Jerry as a poor prospect. When Jerry's uncle sends him ten thousand dollars to set up a business Judge Somers tells him if he has that money at the end of six months, he can marry Edith. After several close calls all turns out all right for the lovebirds.
