The Definitive Guide Inspired by the Vision of A Scream in the Night: Cult Guide

Dir: Leander De Cordova

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Polly with a Past perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A young author of a book containing radical sexual theories Stuart Emmett, is injured when his automobile lunges out of control. He is found by Conscience Williams who takes him to her home, but when her father, a narrow-minded New Englander, reads selections from Stuart's book, he orders the young man out of his house. The couple, who have fallen in love, attempt to communicate through letters, but these are intercepted by Eben Tollman, a wealthy man with an interest in Conscience. When Conscience reads a newspaper story falsely accusing Stuart of scandal, she agrees to marry Tollman. On the eve of the marriage, Marion Holby, the woman linked to Stuart in the slander, comes to Conscience and clears him. The next morning, Conscience discovers her husband drunk and in his hands, the letters that he had intercepted. A scene ensues, and she telephones Stuart for help. During a fight between the two men, Tollman falls into a pool and drowns, freeing Conscience to pursue her true love.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

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

In Africa an explorer is the reincarnated lover of the 2,000-year-old White Queen.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

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

Wealthy young Rex Van Zile is madly in love with pretty Myrtle Davis, but she is so absorbed in the task she has taken on to herself of reforming Skid-Row derelicts that she pays no attention to Rex's affections. Dejected, he commiserates with his friends Harry Richardson and Clay Cullum, and through them he meets young Polly Shannon, who is employed as a maid in their household in order to pay her way to Paris, she she wants to study opera. Polly and her employers come up with a scheme to get Myrtle to notice Rex, but it doesn't quite turn out the way they planned.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter Faith must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that neither likes, and Faith is in love with and eager to marry her childhood sweetheart, John Temple. Faith sets out to investigate what hold Langhorne might have on her father. The search takes her to an island during a fierce sea-storm on a dark and windy night; the sentinel light in the lighthouse suddenly goes out and the family yacht is about to crash upon the great rocks of the island.