The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies: Episode 5, "The Chinese Fan" (1914)
Production Company: Edison. Director: Walter Edwin. Writer: Acton Davies. Cast: Mary Fuller (Dolly Desmond), Yale Boss (Daddy, the office boy), Edward Boulden (a reporter), Robert Harvey (Rockwell Crosby, the managing editor), Harry Linson (Mr. Armstrong), Cora Williams (Mrs. Armstrong), Richard Neill (a high officer of the secret society) Bessie Learn (Muriel Armstrong). Transfer Note: Copied at 16 frames per second from a 35mm tinted print preserved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from source material provided by the New Zealand Film Archive. Running Time: 16 minutes (silent, no music).

Mary Fuller, gushed a Compolitan correspondent in 1915, was no ordinary actress. When “she smiled…a great light broke through the gloom. For, when Mary smiles, her eyes start laughter-waves that beat pleasantly upon your consciousness. Yet it is her fearlessness quite as much as her unusual beauty that has made her a favorite of favorites with the ‘movie’ men and the ‘movie fans.’” This unusual blend of “fearlessness” and “beauty” made Fuller a perfect fit for the action-adventure serials so popular in the early 1910s, when young working women became avid moviegoers. Fuller quickly became known for her willingness to take on any risk for the sake of a picture, from blazing fires to speeding motorboats and bucking bronchos. In one notable sequence, she even escaped by a rope dangling from a seventh story window.

The 12-part Dolly of the Dailies, as the press shortened the title, was Fuller’s third serial for Edison, following What Happened to Mary? (1912), thought by many to be the first film serial, and Who Will Marry Mary? (1913). As Dolly Desmond, Fuller played an unstoppable newspaper reporter who always gets her story.

In Episode 5: The Chinese Fan, Dolly persuades The Comet’s editor to assign her to review a play in Chinatown. There she fails prey to a ruthless gang that has kidnapped an heiress. Dolly saves them both, gives her paper the scoop, and gets the recognition she deserves, all in a day’s work. As the film ends, she’s ready for her next assignment: “A reporter is bound to come in contact with the seamy side of life. That is why Dolly has interesting adventures. Don’t miss her next one.” —Leslie Lewis

(Thanks to Akiva Gottlieb, a graduate student of Richard Abel at the University of Michigan, for his informative paper about this episode and early serials.)

About the Preservation
This film was preserved to film under the direction of the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from a 35mm tinted nitrate print uncovered in 2010 at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington, New Zealand. It is one of only two episodes of the serial known to survive. While the black-and-white sections were in fine condition, nitrate decay had begun in the scenes tinted red or blue, resulting in some image loss. (Nitrate decomposition is not reversible but the process can be slowed by storing films under cold and dry conditions.) Preservation support was provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation.