1909 is a year of fierce competition in the new silent movie industry, where Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company harasses independent moviemakers with lawsuits and sabotage. In spite of this, Emily and Adam Weiss sell all their possessions and gamble everything on a contract to make four pictures in three weeks.
They hire a colorful cast and crew--including a broken-down Broadway matinee idol, a passionate Stanislavsky-trained Russian beauty, seven labor goons, and two young Mohawk Indians on holiday from high steel work--and set up to make movies on the side of a cliff in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
When the dead body of Edison's detective is found during the filming of a chaotic scene, Adam is arrested for the murder and Emily is on her own. She must solve the murder, elude the murderer, and produce the movies before the deadline falls.
The Moving Picture industry is moving to Hollywood, and so is Emily Weiss, deserted by Adam and desperately in need of a job.
When the mogul of Universal Studios offers her a picture to direct in return for helping private detective Holbert Bruns find a missing leading man, the deal looks good. But things start to go sour almost at once. The star turns up dead. The suspects turn out to be dangerous. The studio chauffeur is forward, the ingénue is backward, the detective turns cold, the scene of the crime burns down with all the clues, and a Hollywood ending seems far away indeed.