Essential Cult Cinema Drawn from the Same DNA as Broadway Fever: Cult Guide

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: Edward F. Cline

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

Two inventive farmhands compete for the hand of the same girl.

Dir: Edward F. Cline

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: F. Martin Thornton

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Uncle Tom Without a Cabin perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

In Paris an orphan cartoonist loves a man with a mad wife, who dies in time to prevent her marriage to a jilted Comte.

Dir: Edward F. Cline

A newly wedded couple attempts to build a house with a prefabricated kit, unaware that a rival sabotaged the kit's component numbering.

Dir: Richard Smith

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

Two female candidates for Chief of Police live across the hall from each other, and their political rivalry follows them home, leading to plenty of hi-jinks.

Dir: Charley Chase

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: Edward F. Cline

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Lloyd Ingraham

While walking along the street one day, Arthur P. Hampton, an impoverished young doctor, and his chums, Stub Masters and Johnny Stokes, are persuaded to part with their last remaining funds by tag day solicitor Mary Jane Smith, with whom the doctor promptly falls in love. Doc's friends then hit upon a get-rich-quick scheme. Knowing that his Uncle George has promised a large sum of money upon his nephew's marriage, they persuade Doc to send out fake wedding invitations naming Mary Jane as the blushing bride. Uncle George, elated at the good news, writes to Mary Jane's aunt, Angelica Burns, an old sweetheart, to invite Mary Jane and Angelica to be his guests on an ocean voyage. Meanwhile, Mary Jane pays a visit to the doctor's office and, upon seeing the wedding invitations, becomes so flustered that she trips and sprains her ankle. Doc comes to her rescue and then begs her to pose as his wife. She agrees, but at ship-side, Stub and Johnnie confess all to Uncle George, who flies into a rage until Doc announces that he and Mary Jane have chosen a wedding at sea.

Dir: Edward F. Cline

A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak.