The Definitive Watchlist For Devotees of A World of Folly: Cult Guide

Dir: Robert N. Bradbury

A simple country girl, brutally mistreated by her stepfather, awakens first the sympathy, then the love, of The Boy. The Spider, who lusts after The Girl, makes a bargain with the stepfather and takes her to the city where, kept prisoner, she is soon broken in health and spirit. Cast out and near death, she is taken in by The Boy. Following the demise of The Spider, The Boy takes her to church, where he prays, and after many hours she is restored to health.

Dir: Frank Beal

After Tommy Breen, a virtuoso violinist, loses his factory job because the employees have extended their lunch hour listening to him, June Norton, a cigarette girl who lives in the same boardinghouse as Tommy, sympathizes with him and becomes the inspiration for his song, "When You Smile with Your Eyes in Mine." Song publisher Simon Berg signs Tommy, and after the song becomes a great success, Tommy forgets June as he surrounds himself with Broadway lowlife, spends extravagantly, and becomes infatuated with Mona Merwin, a musical comedy performer. When Berg tells Tommy to write a song about home, Tommy, never having had one, fails. After June asks Berg to help her save Tommy from himself, he decreases Tommy's royalty checks. Tommy's Broadway friends desert him when the checks stop coming, and Tommy becomes destitute until Berg sends him to a country cottage he has purchased in Flatbush, where Tommy finds June waiting to marry him. Now inspired, Tommy writes a hit song about home.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Tin Pan Alley perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Frank Beal

When Sadie, a waitress in a Kansas City railroad station, discovers that her lover Jim Lacy is married and has a child, she transfers to the small desert town of Bagdad, determined to hate all men, but the open spaces and friendliness of the people work to soften her attitude. She falls in love with Billy Thompson, the restaurant's manager, after they rescue an Indian girl from her furious lover. After Sadie saves Billy from the vengeful lover, Billy starts prospecting for gold for money to marry her. Lacy finds Sadie and pleads for help to allow him to go East to escape the law, which is after him because of a shooting. On the condition that he will never return, Sadie helps him win money at a crooked roulette game. Before he leaves, Lacy reveals, to Sadie's horror, that the man he shot was Billy, but she finds Billy unharmed and the lovers marry.

Dir: Frank Beal

In a small Romanian village, peasant girl Katinka Veche falls in love with Jan Drakachu, a bright young man who spends his days studying. Jan wins a scholarship to an American university, graduates, and becomes a successful engineer, while Katinka, left behind in the village, is sold into slavery by her cruel, dissolute father. Her owner, Victor Dravich, takes her to his gambling house in Syria, where he beats her and forces her to become his mistress. When the house is raided, Dravich takes her with him on his travels around the world until they finally settle in a small Arizona mining camp. Katinka sees Jan there but is too ashamed to speak to him. Broken, she sends for her old tutor Boris, who comes to Arizona and kills Dravich but is shot by the sheriff. Katinka follows Jan to New York, where she is arrested, but he locates her in a girls' reclamation home and marries her.

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

Dir: Edgar Jones

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

Confidence artist Flossie Golden attempts to fleece foolish but wealthy James Venable with a breach-of-promise suit. Venable's shrewd attorney, Richard Harding, outwits Flossie by proposing that she marry Venable and live on an allowance of $3,000 per year. Flossie is determined to get even with Harding for ruining her plans. In an attempt to con him, she poses as Innocence Page, but falls in love and marries him instead. Larry, Flossie's former accomplice, endeavors to blackmail her with her errant past, but Harding is already cognizant of the facts and Larry fails.

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

Dir: Frank Beal

Mazie Starrett is a member of a band of thieves headed by Henry Hartland. Her boyfriend Jimmy Britton decides to go straight, and Mazie agrees to marry him when he convinces her that he can make as much money honestly as illegally. While Jimmy works as a truck driver, Mazie is arrested for shoplifting, but customer Allison Cabot obtains her release and befriends her. Meanwhile, Henry romances Allison, who is actually using him to help clear her lover who is in jail for the disappearance of valuable documents which she suspects are in Henry's possession. Mazie seduces Henry, and with Jimmy's help, recovers the papers. A sympathetic police inspector allows Mazie and Jimmy to go away and begin a new life free of crime.

Dir: William Parke

Bruce Wendell, the son of West Virginia coal mine owner James Wendell, graduates from West Point and prepares to lead a fighting unit to the front during World War I. As his father lies dying, however, he convinces Bruce to remain at home and guard the mine. Bruce's fiancée Ann Blair assumes that he is a coward and breaks off their engagement, but her brother Bobbie remains Bruce's loyal friend. Meyer, a German agent, persuades railroad president Parrish to refuse to transport Wendell's coal, but when Bruce adamantly refuses to close the mine, the spy's men decide to blow it up. While Ann is being abducted by Meyer, Bobbie is buried in an explosion at the mine. Bruce rescues Bobbie and then sends a plea to Lieutenant Parrish to rescue Ann. Meyer and his gang are captured and Ann renews her vow of love to Bruce.

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

Dir: Frank Beal

When young Eva Stanley comes home from college, she finds that her mother is deeply involved in the movement to rescue "wayward" girls. Eva's boyfriend John Gilbert is sent west on a government job, and Eva finds herself lonely and neglected. She is lured onto the yacht of lecherous Leo Spencer, the dissolute brother of the district attorney. Leo drugs and then seduces Eva. When John returns home he finds that Eva is pregnant. They decide it's best for Eva to have an abortion, but when the D.A. finds out about it, he has them both John and the doctor arrested.

Dir: Maurice Elvey

A lady marries a horse trainer but withholds herself until her crippled brother is cured.