Helen Holmes and Leo D. Maloney are believed to have co-directed Episode 13, "The Escape on the Fast Freight," released February 6, 1915.
Helen Holmes played the character "Helen" in the first 48 episodes. Then Holmes and director J.P. McGowan quit together. They were replaced on episodes 49-119 by Helen Gibson as "Helen" and James D. Davis as director.
Although many film reference books refer to this as a serial, it's more like what today would be called a series. In many of the earliest serials, each episode's story was self-contained.
At 23.8 hours, it is believed to be the longest film serial ever made.
Based on an article in Moving Picture World, Helen Holmes is believed to have taken over direction of the episode 'Escape from the Fast Freight' after credited director J.P. McGowan was involved in an accident that landed him in the hospital. It's extremely likely that Holmes worked uncredited as a director other parts of this film series.
Episode 26, "The Wild Engine," is one of the films in the 3-disk boxed DVD set called "More Treasures from American Film Archives (2004)", compiled by the National Film Preservation Foundation from 5 American film archives. That film is preserved by the Library of Congress (from the Republic collection), has a running time of 14 minutes and an added piano score.
Episode titles:
- 1. Helen's Sacrifice
- 2. The Plot at the Railroad Cut
- 3. The Girl at the Throttle
- 4. The Stolen Engine
- 5. The Flying Freight's Captive
- 6. The Black Diamond Express
- 7. The Escape on the Limited
- 8. The Girl Telegrapher's Peril
- 9. The Leap from the Water Tower
- 10. The Broken Circuit
- 11. The Fast Mail's Danger
- 12. The Little Engineer
- 13. The Escape on the Fast Freight
- 14. The Red Signal
- 15.
There were 119 episodes, one reel each. The episodes were released every Saturday, starting on 14 November 1914 through 17 February 1917.