The Getaway (1914)
The county tax collector discovers a money shortage in the department of his office presided over by Charles Merwin, sickly old man of fifty, and his daughter, Flora. He places the matter before the grand jury, of which Earl Holt, a wealthy young man of thirty, is the foreman. After questioning Flora, all the members of the jury, except Holt, are in favor of indicting the girl. Holt gives a prearranged signal from the jury room window to a friend, Fred Cross, and the latter speeds away in a taxi. The Merwin home is watched by two detectives, Daniels and Glover. Daniels, noticing activity in the house, forces his way in and finds Flora and her father packing trunks. Cross arrives with the intention of aiding Flora and her father to leave. Cross attacks and overpowers the sleuth. Flora and Cross then leave in the taxi with one of the trunks and Glover gives chase. Flora and Cross leave the taxi at an alley and the machine goes on with the trunk before the detective turns the corner. Glover trails the taxi to the railroad station and is surprised to find the cab empty, but waits to see the trunk claimed. Al Kelly, another detective, is sent to the Merwin house to make the arrest. Meanwhile, Flora and Cross join Merwin at the rear of their home, where a big auto is waiting. Kelly knocks in vain at the front door, then bursts it open and searches the house. He finds no one within and goes out the back way just as the auto is about to leave with Flora, Merwin, Cross and the chauffeur. Kelly jumps for the moving machine and manages to hang on to the cover rods. Holt, having told the grand jurors that he is going on a vacation, appears in a big white car at the forks of the country boulevard. Cross and Kelly, the former in the black auto, the latter on the running board, have a desperate struggle. Finally Kelly is hurled from the machine with a lap-robe wound around his head. At the forks. Flora, Cross, Merwin and the chauffeur quickly transfer to Holt's car and speed off. When Kelly gets his head free and limps to the forks, he finds only the empty black auto. Discouraged, Kelly gives up and returns to the city. At the railroad station, Glover, tired of waiting, opens the trunk on the taxi and finds within the fellow detective, Daniels, bound and gagged. Even the taxi driver escapes. Two months later, the grand jurors receive a letter from Holt, dated Florence, Italy, explaining that he had married Flora before the indictment, that she is innocent, having shielded the real embezzler, her sick father, who had just died. The letter also contains Merwin's signed confession and a check to cover the shortage in the tax collector's office.
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| Filmmakers | Role |
|---|---|
| John B. O'Brien | Director |
| Will M. Ritchey | Writer |
| Siegmund Lubin | Producer |
| Cast | Role |
|---|---|
| Ray Gallagher | |
| Velma Whitman | |
| William Bertram | |
| Thomas Ferman |
