What 1914 silent film serial starred Pearl White as a damsel in distress?

The 1914 silent film serial starring Pearl White as a damsel in distress was The Perils of Pauline.

Produced by William Randolph Hearst's Eclectic Film Company, the serial follows Pauline Marvin, an adventurous heiress whose guardian's scheming secretary tries to seize her inheritance. Its 20 biweekly chapters repeatedly place Pauline in dangerous situations involving kidnappers, fires, aircraft, balloons, ships, and cliffs.

Pearl White became one of the biggest stars of the early film-serial era, and the series helped establish the cliffhanger format: each episode ended with a seemingly impossible predicament that encouraged audiences to return the following week. The serial was filmed partly in Fort Lee, New Jersey, an important early American filmmaking center.

A common mix-up is the famous image of Pauline tied to railroad tracks. That scene was not actually in The Perils of Pauline; it was associated with later melodramas and other serial heroines, especially Helen Holmes in The Hazards of Helen. The surviving film is an abbreviated version rather than the complete original 20-chapter release.