The Argonauts of California
One needs no better description of this 1916 spectacular than the original review in The Moving Picture World, October 1916; in fact, apart from William K. Everson's comments in Films in Review, one can find no other description of this rare film, missing until UCLA Film Archives' preservation and restoration work made it available
The review describes the film as "a spectacular ten-reel photo drama of early California, depicting the wild days of ‘49' when the gold lust drew a polyglot population to the shores of San Francisco Bay and the valley of the Sacramento.... The play deals with the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in `48, the subsequent rush of the ‘Forty-niners' and the wild days when San Francisco was the mecca of gold-maddened adventurers from all over the world. The time of the action runs from 1848 to 1856.
"The story revolves around the famous Vigilantes and their picturesque achievements in fighting the lawless elements of the primitive young city with organized lynch law. There are mob scenes in which thousands of people appear and are said to be the biggest and most realistic episodes ever filmed. Many historical characters like Sutter and Marshall, Vigilante leaders and other who figured in the life of the period, are shown and the scenes reproducing historical buildings and localities are said to be exact facsimiles. The atmosphere of the time is accurately preserved and the writers of the scenario have gone deeply into history in order to be accurate in all details. The assassination of James King, of William and Richardson, the execution of Cora and Casey, the Reign of Terror when the ‘Hounds' and ‘Sydney Coves' ruled the town and many other stirring incidents of the first years of San Francisco figure prominently in the action. The frontier features are also important, these including the attack on a pioneer wagon train by a war party of Comanches...."