Deep Archive Finds Movies That Echo the Spirit of A Daughter of Lux...

Dir: Paul Powell

The locale of the play is among the redwoods of California. The Nymph has grown up under the care of a mother who has forsaken civilization to live in a log house in the timber. There is a stalwart Amazon-like servant, who guards the girl jealously. The Nymph has known nothing of men's society. She is taught the ancient stories of the Greek divinities and plays hymns to these personages on her harp. But the restless girl is not content to stay at home. She runs and dances through the forest, her head filled with the wonderful stories that she has read. She gives the trees the names of the gods. One day she clasps her arms around a tree and calls on the divinity that inhabits it to appear. As the tree remains stolid to her impassioned cries, she clasps her hands and calls again for Apollo. A young hunter, who happens to have come on the scent, steps forward. The girl can hardly reconcile his hunting clothes and high boots with the picture of the half-draped Greek god. He wins her interest, however. There is a thrilling fire scene afterwards and the girl is rescued from danger and restored to her adorer.

Dir: Paul Powell

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Man in the Moonlight perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Two mysterious strangers arrive uninvited at the wedding of Sergeant O'Farrell of the Royal Mounted Police and Rosine Delorme, the daughter of an innkeeper. After O'Farrell receives a message that Rosine's wayward brother Louis has escaped from prison with the notorious devil-may-care outlaw Rossingnol, O'Farrell postpones the wedding to find the convicts. One of the strangers confronts Rosine alone and convinces her to guide him to a cabin at the end of the Passage Du Mort where, he says, Louis awaits. When they find the cabin empty, the stranger reveals himself to be Rossingnol. They struggle and Rosine faints. Rossingnol carries her to a bed and hypnotizes her, but just then Louis arrives wounded to warn that the mounted police are coming. Rossingnol tells Louis to take Rosine and hide in the bushes until they hear a shot to signal them to head for the border. After Rossingnol is shot and dies in the arms of his sweetheart who followed him to the cabin, O'Farrell resigns and joins Rosine and Louis in the United States.

Dir: Paul Powell

Betsy Harlow is a hard-working maid in a boarding house. Her dream. however, is to be a detective, a dream she shares with her boyfriend Oscar, a delivery boy for a local grocer. One day a mysterious character named Harry Brent takes a room at the boarding house. Harry, seeing that Betsy is falling for his rather shady charms, persuades her to help him get a box of jewels owned by the Jaspers, an elderly couple who lives across the hall. It turns out that Harry is not quite who he seems; neither, however, are the Jaspers.

Dir: Paul Powell

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Betsy's Burglar perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Grinde is a junior partner of a pottery firm. An old chemist, Benjamin Lord, discovers a formula for glazing pottery that is designed to revolutionize the industry. The chemist's grandson, David, takes a sample of the new process to Grinde, who says he will give it consideration. He delegates his foreman, Mole, to steal the formula. Mole kills the chemist, and he and Grinde frame an explosion to conceal the crime. After David refuses to sell the formula, Grinde and Mole lock him and his sweetheart in a vault with poisonous gas. Grinde then tries to kill Mole, who knows too much, and take over the firm from his elderly partner at a directors' meeting.

Dir: Paul Powell

When a wealthy hypochondriac is dissatisfied by the care of the town doctor (Doc Arnold), he consults with a new physician in town who swindles him out of a large sum of money. When his daughter tries to retrieve the check, the quack (Dr. Bell) turns up dead with a gun shot wound to the chest. Doc Arnold lends his expertise to the investigation and solves the case by finding microscopic evidence on the murder weapon left at the scene.

Dir: Paul Powell

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Wolf Man perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Jess Vance and her father are homesteaders in the Northwest. For some time land-frauds "engineered" by a "ring" controlled by Senator Hoyle have been going on. Francis Ames, a lawyer, is sent by the government to investigate. The homesteaders endeavor to see Ames, but by the manipulation of Senator Hoyle are prevented from doing so, and they feel that Ames has double-crossed them. Jess boasts bravely of what she would do if she found one of the "dummies" on her claim. Ames learns that one of Hoyle's henchmen has arranged to send dummies to the timberland to "establish a residence" and cinch the ring's claim to the township where Jess lives. Ames stating that he is going east, follows the dummies. Jess meets Ames on her claim and orders him off. He refuses to leave and at the expiration of three days Jess again orders him off, and when he still refuses she shoots him, inflicting only a slight wound. Meantime his secretary, Stanley, meets Cora Abbott, a former friend of Ames. She obtains information that Ames is laid up in his cabin and reports to Hoyle. He tells her to "get something" on Ames. She goes to the woods, and to Ames' dismay insists that she has come to nurse him back to health. In the meantime Jess, feeling sorry for him, has bandaged his wound. He learns of the contempt in which he is held by the settlers. Cora, to get rid of Jess, tells her that she and Ames are engaged. Ames asks Cora to leave, which she does, after a stormy scene, but she bribes two forest scouts to burn Ames' cabin on the night the settlers have decided to burn the cabin of the jumpers. Ames, hearing of the proposed attempt to drive out the jumpers, leaves his cabin in charge of a half-breed. When Jess is told of the burning of Ames' cabin, and the finding of a charred body, she is broken-hearted, and to forget her own heartache offers to go to Portland to see if anything can be done toward the settlement of the homesteaders' wrongs. She is granted an interview with Ames, and there are two very surprised people when Ames sees his forest girl and Jess discovers that her jumper and the despised Ames are one and the same. Later she gladly gives up her homestead rights to become Ames' bride.

Dir: Paul Powell

A teenage girl lives with two grizzly bears in a cave in the California Sierras and plays with rabbits and birds. When gambler Jim Hamilton and his mistress try to interest wealthy Bob Jordan in purchasing an abandoned mine in the Sierras, Jordan, mistakes the girl clothed in leaves and feathers for an animal, shoots her in the arm. He nurses the girl, who cannot speak, and she repays him with a slave-like devotion. At the mine, Hamilton remembers that fifteen years earlier, Indians attacked his home while he was away and killed his family. The wild girl, really Hamilton's daughter, remembers fleeing from the raid into the woods. Although Hamilton's mistress tries to seduce Jordan, he refuses to buy the mine. Hamilton then tries to rob Jordan at gunpoint, but the girl has buried Jordan's money belt as a prank. Jordan's anger causes her to return to her cave, but later they reconcile, and she returns the belt. After Hamilton's mistress leaves with another man, Hamilton returns to the city, and Jordan starts back with the girl following at his heels.

Dir: Paul Powell

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Microscope Mystery perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Revivalist Davids persuades Daire Vincent to elope with him. Within the year, inspired by his associates to seek a held of greater grafting possibilities, he deserts her without having made her a wife, and goes to New York, where he meets with great success. Daire has a child, and after many failures, becomes a dance hall singer to support it. In New York she is approached by Davids' confederates who ask her to help them in raiding the Mozart dive in which she works. She thus discovers Davids' present whereabouts and activities, and, taking her child, confronts him. Davids' young wife is dying, childless. The sight of his own son, whom he cannot claim, stirs him deeply and with a regenerating effect. The wife dies. Davids, insistently urged by the Purity League to do this, makes a raid on the Mozart. He is wounded. Father White, a slum worker, striving for Daire's spiritual upliftment, hears her life's story and intercedes with Davids to legitimatize the child. Davids and Daire go through a marriage ceremony. Later each is shown rising from the depth to a fuller and better knowledge of life.

Dir: Paul Powell

Hard-working insurance-company bookkeeper John Carter comes home on Easter eve to his suburban cottage with a potted lily for his loving wife and two daughters. The Carters live happily until cashier Charles Ryder is murdered by the night watchman, a "coke-sniffer" in need of money, and Carter is accused because he worked with Ryder that evening. During intense third-degree police questioning, Carter acts guilty, but cub reporter Ned Fowler, who loves Carter's daughter Helen, intervenes. After the watchman, arrested for fighting and in need of drugs, confesses, Carter is released, but insurance company president Ira Wolcott will not reinstate him because of his notoriety. During the next year, Carter fails to find work because of his age. As Easter approaches and his life-insurance premium comes due, Carter decides to kill himself in a gas-filled hotel room so that his starving family can collect the insurance money. When Carter's little daughter Nellie strays into Wolcott's yard, Wolcott learns about Carter's plight and rescues him. Carter returns to work, and Helen becomes engaged to Ned.

Dir: Paul Powell

Susan ( Dorothy Gish ), a pretty society girl, bored with her lot in life, reads and decides to use her time and money to help the poor. She founds the Joan of Arc Mission and quickly becomes an easy mark for con men. She meets and becomes fond of Larry ( Owen Moore ), the son of a loved and respected politician. Soon Larry exposes the petty grafting that is going on and Susan almost ends their friendship. She is befriended by Jim Cardigan ( Fred J. Butler ), a saloon owner, who has evil designs upon her. Susan would like to turn his saloon into an ice cream parlor. Jim promises to do so, but uses his interest to lure her to his apartment and tries to advantage of her. When a con men runs to tell Larry that she is being attacked, he goes to rescue her and is wounded in the struggle. Susan nurses him back to health and happily wins his love.