With the unprecedented success of action serials like The Perils of Pauline (1914) and The Exploits of Elaine (1914), both produced by Pathé and starring the reigning queen of cliffhangers, Pearl White, all kinds of enterprising film companies tried to get on the serial band wagon. One of the least remembered was the Jaxon Film Company whose homegrown Pearl White, a spirited lass named Jane Vance, romped through the preparedness cliffhanger A Daughter of Uncle Sam. The redoubtable Miss Vance played Jessie Emerson, a young socialite who has taken up telegraphy as a hobby (!). Soon, enemy spies in general and the nasty Henry Von Prague (Henry Carleton) in particular are after some government codes that Jessie has gotten hold of. The wily Von Prague at one point almost persuades the naive Jessie to turn over the codes to one Lieutenant Blake (Lewis Dayton) who, according to the villain, has been working on an invention that may destroy all traditional forms of warfare. Happily, Jessie's suitor, the dashing Captain Leonard Taylor (William Sorelle), is fully aware of Von Prague's duplicity and, in the final chapter (the exact number of episodes have been lost to history), manages to catch the entire spy ring, Jessie manning the all-important wireless.
by Hans J. Wollstein
synopsis
