Otto Nelson

Western film serial featuring Buffalo Bill

Helen Martin takes her father's place when he is too ill to carry out his duties as Sheriff, and followed by Jim Grey, tracks down Blackie Wells, notorious 'bad man,' who has shot up a town. The trail leads over prairie and woodland, ending when Helen assumes the part of a dancing girl in the Last Chance saloon and learns the hiding place of Blackie and his associates.

Hoot is the only cattleman in the neighborhood and he is about to be run off the range by the wealthiest sheep man in the district. Hoot is in love with the sheep man's daughter, and refuses to be run off. The little son of the sheep herder strays away and wanders to Hoot's shanty, where Hoot keeps him, sending a note to the father to come after him. A villainous foreman intercepts the note and plots a kidnapping frame-up. After a near tragic climax, Hoot captures and unmasks the villain, winning the girl and the good will of her father.

A "drifting" cowpuncher tries to find a place where he can be happy, but never actually succeeding.

Hoot is a cowpuncher, somewhat addicted to liquor (when he can get it). His sweetheart, the rancher's daughter, tells him that if he ever takes another drink, their engagement is at an end.

A villain robs a safe in the town bank and leaves evidence to convict the hero.

Dick Rainboldt (Carey) signs up to work at a gold mine without realizing that he's being hired as a strikebreaker. He takes the job primarily because of a pretty girl who lives in the town. The superintendent and manager of the mine convince Rainboldt to blow up the mine and make it appear like the strikers did it. But Rainboldt turns the tables on the plotters and reveals their scheme. The mine owner rewards him with a big assignment and the girl promises to marry him.

At the beginning, Thirty Years of Motion Pictures (The March of the Movies) was merely a presentation/lecture given by Otto Nelson at two National Board of Review conferences, in 1925 and 1926, under the title Early History and Growth of the Motion Picture Industry. These proved so successful that work on a film version began, with historian Terry Ramsaye (who around the same time published the seminal study A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture) coming onboard the production.