The Wrong Train Order

Here's a classic 1915 serial offering: Helen Gibson alone is the only person who can stop the runaway express train. Will she stop it in time?

This is the sort of thing that nickelodeon audiences just loved. Let me put it out there right away that I love the "Hazards of Helen", especially because I'm a train nut. While "Hazards" is definitely a step up from serials like "The Perils Of Pauline" in a lot of respects, it too has its flaws. "Hazards" in general reflects the basic understanding of how audiences would watch movies back then: one has to watch and observe every detail in order to make out the intricacies of the plot. As many have noted before, "Hazards" also requires a somewhat rudimentary understanding of railroads, something an audience sitting in a dark nickelodeon would be familiar with. In this specific episode, one has to read the train orders that the operator mixes up in order to understand the plot, something I initially did not do due to the somewhat messy scrawlings on the paper. However, after going back and reading them, the plot made sense. If you can do that, then this episode will work for you.

Another somewhat small observation I made: why on earth does Helen have to climb onto the roof of the train in order to reach the cab of the locomotive? She could have run through the train and then climbed onto the tender, but I suppose its for the drama of it all. 8/10, great serial and episode!

Helen Gibson, girl telegrapher, is aboard the train heading back from her vacation, when things go wrong. Unless some one does something, the train will go off a rail bridge or crash into another train coming up the line. Fortunately, Miss Gibson can fix the problem by clambering on top top the moving train and stopping it herself.

THE HAZARDS OF HELEN serial had begun a year earlier, with Kalem ruling serial Queen, Helen Holmes, in the lead. She left the studio, but fortunately they had another Helen to promote as lead to bring it up to 119 episodes by the time it was done. This one seems to spend a lot of screen time showing the written orders, but Miss Gibson looks to be doing her own dangerous stunts.