The Definitive Guide Deeply Connected to A Million to Burn: Cult Guide

Dir: Unknown Director

The Judge needs a present for his wife's birthday, so Harry suggests a new corset. They go to the shop, but he's so embarrassed to ask the saleslady he hides in a phone booth.Harry goes in, but finds a GUY wearing one, and runs out.They both dress as women to get back in, but Mrs. Rummy gets there and chases him out.

Dir: William Parke

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

Anna Mirrel, a young Jewish girl in Czarist Russia, is forced to degrade herself in order to visit her father, whom she believes to be ill. She obtains a yellow passport, signifying that she is a prostitute. When she arrives in St. Petersburg, she finds her father has been killed. She encounters a young journalist and tells him of the crimes the state perpetrates against its citizens. But the pair fall into the hands of the secret police when the journalist publishes her remarks. In order to obtain their freedom, Anna must choose whether to submit to the desires of the sinister head of the police, Baron Andrey.

Dir: William Parke

An optimistic girl survives city life as a shoeshine until she ends up in Children's Court. Just as she helps her geranium, Sally, to grow, a kindly judge sees her potential and takes her to his mother's country home to flourish.

Dir: Charley Chase

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

A young married couple volunteer to take charge of several orphans after the asylum has burned down. Of course they find their hands full with their troublesome charges.

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: William Parke

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

Sculptress Madge Graham sacrifices her art career to nurture violinist Robert Knight whom she marries and with whom she has two children. Gradually Knight becomes infatuated with Mrs. Alden, the wife of a wealthy man. Madge discovers her husband's treachery at the Alden home when she encounters the two embracing. In their surprise, a lamp is overturned and the house catches fire. Knight attempts to stop the blaze, but his hands are badly burned and he is taken to the hospital for treatment. When it becomes apparent that he will require skin grafting to save his hands, Mrs. Alden refuses, but Madge bravely sacrifices her skin, finally forcing Knight to realize the deep love of his wife.

Dir: Reggie Morris

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: William Parke

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of An Amateur Devil perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Amos Winthrop, owner of the Winthrop newspaper syndicate of "yellow" journals, delights in posing as the patron of ambitious youth, and he appoints Allan Stone as business manager of the "Daily Pioneer" at Columbia. The Rev. Timothy Neal, compelled to resign his pastorate because of advancing years, arrives with his granddaughter Esther in Columbia, where the minister hopes to make a living selling books. The one failure in Amos Winthrop's life is his pampered son Roy; he sends him to Columbia to work as a reporter on the "Daily Pioneer" staff. Rev. Neal takes many and varied lessons in the gentle art of book-agenting but success does not come to him and Esther is at her wits' end trying to instruct her grandfather how to approach strangers. Their little store of savings dwindles. Jim Barnes is editor of the "Daily Pioneer" and he delights in applying big-city methods to a small-town paper. He prints sensational stories and is supported in his methods by young Winthrop. Stone, on the other hand, asserts that scandal about people kills advertising prospects. The owner of Columbia's largest department store is Henry Lawlor, and the Daily Pioneer advertising staff longs to secure Lawlor to an advertising contract. Pneumonia attacks Rev. Neal and he passes away, leaving Esther alone in the world. She has met both Allan Stone and Roy Winthrop. The time comes when the only hope of the "Daily Pioneer" is the Lawlor advertising contract. There is an agreement that if the paper fails to make a stipulated showing before a specified date, Allan Stone and Jim Barnes shall forfeit all claim to their respective shares of stock in said paper. Young Winthrop antagonizes Lawlor and it seems that the contract is lost. He prepares a story dealing with the purported elopement of Lawlor's daughter and the same is set in type. Esther, considering it a "spite story," burns the entire edition of the "Daily Pioneer," thus preventing the story from being read; she thus earns the gratitude of Lawlor, who gives the paper the advertising patronage. Amos Winthrop, summoned to Columbia, appreciates his son's foolishness and orders him to leave Columbia and return home where the father can keep an eye on the boy. Stone wins an allotment of stock in the "Daily Pioneer" and wins Esther for his bride.

Dir: William Parke

Beam opens a boarding house and many interesting characters are introduced. She spreads her optimism to their lives. Also to her blind father by telling him army stories about her brother when in actuality, he's deserted.

Dir: William Parke

The story opens with the broker, who, as the head of the company, was promising quick returns on investments, suddenly disappears. Another "get-rich-quick" bubble had exploded. The case was ordinary, it was averred by the officials, for the man had imposed on a gullible public and made off with their money to live in ease in some distant country. But there was a different story. The man had been the victim of a scheming couple. He was the tool of two wizards of high finance who used him to cover their tracks and take the blame for their misdeeds. The escape of the broker had been accomplished in a clever manner. While his daughter detained the detectives by talking to them, he left the table of a dinner party given at his home and from that time no trace of him To help the needy ones who had suffered by the apparent mismanagement of her father, the girl turned over all her property to the creditors and withdrew to earn her livelihood by working in a dressmaking establishment. Among those who attended the creditor's meeting were the actual criminals and they selected as their next victim a young man who had lost a few thousand in the crash but who could easily afford to lose more. He was very sympathetic with the unfortunates seemed "easy." To enlist his immediate sympathy, the woman simulated an attempted suicide. After the young fellow had rescued her, she told him that her husband's meager earnings had been wiped out by the crash and that they had nothing left. The young man escorted her home and said he would help them to a new start in life. While the woman and the "sucker" were out in the latter's automobile chance intervened to upset the plans of the conspirators. The girl, who had retired after the flight of her father, was struck by the machine. Despite the fact that the woman made sure to inform the young fellow who the upstart was, he evinced a great interest in her. To destroy this interest, the scheming woman tried a novel plan. She had the employer of the girl send the young woman out motoring in expensive gowns, arranged for the young man to see her, and insinuate that the worst possible conclusion was the only way to explain the sudden acquisition of wealth. This trick proved useless for the lover investigated and found that she was merely acting as a model. Various attempts to injure the girl and put her out of the way were tried but all to no avail. Feeling convinced that she was being persecuted for an unknown motive, the young fellow decided to do a little investigation. As a last resort the swindlers had their bookkeeper, who had only been a short time in their employ but had earned their confidence, write a letter to the girl purporting to come from her father asking her to meet him. The girl kept her appointment and found the man and woman waiting for her instead. They threatened her with bodily harm unless she withdrew and they reminded her of how they had disposed of her father. Then they became boisterous, feeling sure of their victim and recalled the details of the plot that had eliminated the father. Their talk suddenly ceased when they saw their bookkeeper followed by the young man and a policeman enter the room. While the crooks raged at the bookkeeper who had betrayed them, the old man smiled, removed his wig and glasses and introduced himself as the fugitive broker. He had determined to disclose the real criminals and, with the aid of the police, had installed a dictagraph, listened to what was said and arranged for their arrest. In the face of this testimony the swindlers were speechless and were silently escorted to prison to await trial.