Editor's Top Picks Following the Footsteps of A Prisoner for Life: Cult Guide

Dir: John Francis Dillon

Adventuress Leonie Sobatsky falls in love with a young man named Nevil Trask, and he with her. Trask doesn't know that Leonie is actually the head of an international smuggling ring--and Leonie doesn't know that Trask is an undercover Secret Service agent assigned to break up the ring and capture its head.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

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

A beautiful young girl, Lola, is a dancer at a private club for wealthy men in New York City. Some of the club members make a bet that Lola can't seduce a young doctor, Jennings. Her attempt fails, and in order to find out why she follows him around and discovers that he runs a clinic on the city's poor Lower East Side. She begins to see the young doctor in a new light, and sets out to help him build the emergency hospital he's always wanted.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

A terrible toothache causes Jack Robin to stop his automobile in front of the home of Dorothy Mason. Noticing a flat tire, Jack attaches his automatic pump and forgets about it as he listens enthralled to Dorothy's singing. When the sound of the burst tire brings Dorothy running out, Jack feigns injury so he can be nursed by her. After he leaves the house, and Dorothy's father discovers some important invention plans missing, Harlan Graves, Dorothy's suitor, suggests that Jack stole them. Jack, suspecting Graves, breaks into Graves' home to clear himself and meets a real burglar, "Spider" Kelly, who adopts Jack as his guide. They blow up a safe at a house party where Jack suspects the plans to be hidden. The papers are found, Graves is arrested and Spider, disappointed that Jack made such a mess in blowing the safe, goes off, leaving Dorothy and Jack happily alone.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

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

Snobbish attorney Charles 'Beauty' Steele loses his wife due to his drinking and his airs at the same time that his brother-in-law absconds with funds belonging to one of Steele's clients. In search of the thief, Steele is attacked and left for dead. He is rescued by a kind couple, but suffers from amnesia. He starts life afresh and is happy, until the return of his memory sends him back to resolve his old involvements.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

Gentleman crook Boston Blackie answers a want ad for an expert safe cracker placed by Doris Macon, who claims a moral right to the safe's contents. She hires Blackie, and they break into the house where the safe is kept. Blackie blows up the safe just as owner Captain von Hoffmeier returns home. Doris disappears with papers from inside the safe, while Blackie takes phonograph records, which, when played with a special needle, reveal secrets that implicate von Hoffmeier as a German political spy. Doris is actually the girl friend of a secret service man who has followed them to the house. Blackie's talents are praised, and he goes to work for the government.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

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

Daphne Trowbridge, an impulsive and obstinate but nonetheless kindhearted young woman, lives with her aunt and uncle on their country estate. Daphne falls in love with Tom Dunstan, but when she learns that Mrs. Trowbridge favors the young man, she deserts him, whereupon he departs for the woods brokenhearted. Because her aunt dislikes Gerald, Daphne accepts his proposal, but on the day of the wedding, she discovers that Mrs. Trowbridge has liked him from the beginning. Furious at her aunt's scheming, Daphne hires the first man she meets, who happens to be a heavily bearded lumberman, to marry her and then leave. Later, however, her hired husband abducts her to his cabin in the woods, where he eventually succeeds in taming her. After he rescues her from two lecherous lumberjacks, Daphne discovers that her husband is Tom, whom she had loved all along.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

Brewster, the bean king, has an option of renewal on a certain bean canning plant owned by Ellis. Ellis does not desire to renew and hires Wingate, a shyster lawyer, to help him. Brewster has to send Betty to renew the contract. Later he sends his lawyer to help her and Ellis' man persuades her that he is a plotter. There follows plot and counter-plot, but all-innocently Betty carries the day.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Silk-Lined Burglar perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A London laundress attempts to rise above her station in order to capture the love of a wealthy young man, thus missing out on the truer love of one of her own class.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

When her husband, struggling lawyer Horace Dillingham, is unable to provide adequate money for her insatiable desire for expensive cherries, Kitty Dillingham goes to work as a stenographer for him. One day while Horace is out of the office, Kitty mistakes Jonas Collamore, a defendant in a divorce suit for whom Horace is acting, for an important client. Kitty agrees to lunch, and, swallowing many maraschino cherries along with their cocktails, becomes drunk. Jonas takes her to a nearby inn where they are followed by Mrs. Collamore's detectives, who then summon Mrs. Collamore and her lawyer Horace. Kitty realizes Jonas is trying to create a compromising situation, and she leaves through the window. When the detectives break in, the only trace of Kitty is her hairpin. Kitty and Jonas then conspire to entrap their spouses. Both couples manage to straighten out their domestic problems at the last minute.

Dir: John Francis Dillon

An amusing satire on the simple village maiden who comes to the great city and falls a victim to its alluring temptations.