The Definitive Watchlist Seeking the Same Brilliance as A Modern Mephisto: Cult Guide

The A Modern Mephisto Phenomenon

In the Pantheon of cult cinema, A Modern Mephisto to provide a definitive example of Unknown Director's stylistic genius.

Rodgers, a dissolute artist, leaving for Villard Castle, where he is to restore old paintings, tells his friends that he intends marrying Lord Villard's daughter and incidentally her money. Obstacles intervene, but crafty Rodgers succeeds in winning the girl's love. They are married secretly. Alice, the daughter's nurse, learns of the marriage and agrees to keep it a secret so long as Rodgers is faithful. Months pass, and Rodgers tells his wife he will commit suicide if she does not give him $1,000 with which to pay his debts. Lord Villard sees Alice giving her dead mother's jewels to Rodgers. She confesses her relationship and is disowned. Alice goes to Rodgers' home. Finding him with two profligate women, she leaves him in anger. Lord Villard dies, but Alice finds that she must make her own living, as she has been disinherited. Rodgers, financially embarrassed, becomes a counterfeiter. Detected in a theater, Rodgers makes a daring dash for liberty over the housetops, but is captured and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Five years later Alice is a famous circus rider. Her little son is being reared in the country by the old nurse. Rodgers, released, sees his wife entering the theater. In the course of the performance, Prince Tremayne proposes to Alice, but is told that she is not free to consider his love. Rodgers startles Alice by appearing at the country place and demanding $500 with which to go to America. Alice, asking time, takes the child to her city home. Rodgers, coming there the next day, snatches up the child and escapes with him when Alice refuses to advance the money. Prince Tremayne follows Rodgers, who uses a motorcycle. In the hot chase the motorcycle catches fire and Rodgers and the boy are thrown to the ground. Using the lad as a shield, Rodgers holds Tremayne and his chauffeur at bay with a revolver. The chauffeur, by swimming a stream, attacks Rodgers from the rear. In the struggle on a bridge Rodgers is thrown into the water thirty feet below. Believing him dead, Tremayne gladdens Alice by this report and by restoring to her the child. Her joy is destroyed a few moments later when Rodgers telephones to say that she needn't feel happy, because he isn't dead yet, and that she still has to reckon with him. Tremayne then suggests that the child be taken to his .castle. The old nurse is put on the train with the boy. Rodgers has learned of their plan and is also on the train. The nurse in desperation determines to sacrifice herself. Struggling with Rodgers, she pulls him with her onto the adjoining tracks, where a moment later both are killed by another train. The closing scene is that of Alice now happily married, watching her son putting flowers on the grave of the nurse who had sacrificed her life.