Kalem's serial The Hazards of Helen has been the source of controversy over the years, though mainly such controversy has attended as to whether or not it is truly a serial. With 119 episodes averaging 15 minutes apiece and an implied total running time of nearly a day -- though not all episodes survive -- The Hazards of Helen would rightfully take its claim as the longest movie serial of the silent period, and possibly of all time. The complication is that "Helen" did not use the device of a cliff-hanger ending; rather each episode was a self- contained story, more in line of what is considered a film series rather than a serial. However, in just about every other way it conformed to the format: Helen was the telegraph operator at Lone Point, a remote railroad switching station at which she operated seemingly as its only employee. For some reason Helen seemed to have more of her share of runaway locomotives, out-of-control boxcars and desperate bandits in the course of a day's work. Although in a few instances Helen was rescued by a hero, most often it was due to her own courage and pluck that she was able to save the day, usually with a skeptical male somewhere along the way being forced to eat his words about the capabilities of women in emergency situations. The first episode debuted on November 7, 1914 and the last opened in theaters on February 24, 1917.
The main reason for The Hazards of Helen's long run was its great popularity; although The Perils of Pauline ultimately became the regarded archetype as far as silent serials went, The Hazards of Helen was actually more popular in its time than "Pauline." It was typified by excellent stunt work, done by future Western stars Hoot Gibson, Jack Hoxie, and True Boardman among others, not to mention star Helen Holmes herself, who did most of her own stunts. For episodes 1-49, Holmes portrayed the title role with one exception -- Anna Q. Nilsson covered for episode 18 while Holmes was ill. Helen Holmes ultimately married director J. P. McGowan in 1915 and they both founded Signal Films, a company that produced the kinds of railroad adventures in which Holmes specialized; for a time, she appeared in both the Signal films and the Helen serial. At Episode 50, the title role in The Hazards of Helen was finally taken on by Helen Gibson -- Hoot Gibson's wife, whose real name was Rose; she agreed to take on the "Helen" name professionally when she assumed the role for the serial's last 69 installments.
Ironically, interest in The Hazards of Helen began to pull away from The Perils of Pauline in the early twenty-first century, mainly due to the independence of its heroine and its focus on methods of transportation (not just trains; in some episodes, Helen pedals an early motorcycle around) and machine-age technology. Unfortunately, not a lot has survived of the serial -- of Holmes' episodes, only Nos. 1, 3, 9, 13, 16, 20-21, 26, 31, 33, 39, and a fragment of 47 are known to exist. Of Gibson there is considerably less -- episodes 63, 69, 76, 106, and 108 are the only ones still viewable of the 69 entries she made. Perhaps, for posterity's sake, it's good that the storyline for each episode was self-contained. The most frequently seen episode of "Helen" is No. 26, "The Wild Engine," which was included in the More Treasures from American Film Archives collection and wass also available as a download from the Internet Archive.
