Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of Cheating Cheaters: Cult Guide

Dir: Allan Dwan

Drusilla Ives, a young Quaker girl living on an isolated island, leaves to become the servant of the spendthrift Duke of Guisenberry in London, who is the Lord of her village. She finds that she is attracted to the bustling city's night life, and when the duke discovers that she is a fine dancer, he helps her turn professional. In short order she becomes known as Diana Valrose, the city's favorite dancer. Unfortunately, her strict father and her Quaker fiancee, John Christison, back on the island find out about her newfound fame and career and strongly disapprove--her father places a curse on her and her boyfriend marries her sister Faith. Complications ensue.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

An outcast named Lo Dorman encounters a young woman lost in the woods. He defends her from danger in the forest and from Sheriff Dunn.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Winthrop Clavering a mystery writer, is continually ridiculed for the fiction of the crimes he depicts, so he decides to solve a case himself. To that end, he determines to find the slayer of Pedro Alvarez, who whispered before dying that his assailant was a woman. At the City Refuge for Homeless Girls, Clavering obtains the assistance of Margaret Holt, the sister of Victor Holt, the district attorney. Margaret, it is revealed, was abducted by Juanita, a member of a gang of white slavers led by Alvarez. After escaping from a brothel, Margaret became Alvarez' stenographer, hoping to gather secret information on his gang. While searching for evidence, Margaret was surprised by Alvarez, whom she killed. Finally, Clavering captures the gang, clears Margaret, and encourages her romance with cub reporter Jack Howell.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

A girl with old-fashioned values becomes a modern sophisticate.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Sunny Wiggins is regarded as worthless by the other members of his family, who have risen to the social station where they are snubbed by the best people. The morning of the day the play begins his sister is preparing to entertain a party of butterflies, among whom is the mentally lacking beanpole she intends to marry. Sunny is in bed with as queer a lot of associates as could be collected. He has recruited his following from the bread line; two of them are in bed with him while the others are sleeping on the carpet, and one has even gone to rest in the bathtub. Not too willingly do all hands go to the shower, but it is a wash or no breakfast. Downstairs goes the motley array and into the dining room. Sunny thinks it fine that such a spread has been prepared for his guests and there is little left when sister enters with her guests. Of course, Sis at once tells father and Sunny is called to book. Dismissing his own guests, he finds that he has only one friend in the place, one of his sister's guests, and he doesn't know her name. She thinks Sunny is splendid and when his father has sent him out to try his sociological theories along the Bowery, she wishes him luck. There in a cheap lodging house Sunny teaches the derelicts to laugh, and with such success that an eminent specialist drafts him to cure a millionaire grouch of dyspepsia. In the rich home of the dyspeptic he finds that the girl is the millionaire's daughter. She enters heartily into his plans but an aged 'cellist, whose favorite music is Chopin's "Funeral March," exerts more influence in the household than he. But when father has discovered his daughter and the supposed physician in fond embrace there is a fight, which ends with father a prisoner in his room, to be cured by starvation. Meanwhile a broker, whose offer of marriage has been refused by the daughter, is plotting to ruin her father in Wall Street. How Sunny thwarts the attempt, cures the grouch, becomes his son-in-law and partner and thereby is reinstated in the good graces of his own family, is the story this comedy tells.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

When Colonel Archer, the military post commanding officer, refuses to loan money to his second-in-command, Captain Waring, Waring gets the money from Brent Lindsay of the nearby mining town, in exchange for his note. Both Waring and Lindsay court Floyd Bingham, the daughter of a retired colonel, but Floyd learns that Lindsay is involved with Queen, a dance hall girl. Following the urging of her father, Floyd marries Archer, who has two children left to him by his dying sister, whom Floyd loves. When Lindsay continues his attentions to Floyd, Archer quarrels with her and leaves to go hunting. Floyd goes walking in the woods with Lindsay and his kiss is photographed by Waring, who attempts to blackmail Lindsay. When Lindsay is found dead and Archer, who suspects Floyd, is arrested, the men from the mining town almost lynch Archer, but Queen, who witnessed the murder, clears him.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Known as "Wildflower," Letty Roberts meets Arnold Boyd, a wealthy man who is weary of life in the city. Arnold thinks that Letty is merely a charming child, however, his playboy brother Gerald is attracted to her and charms her into eloping with him. Arnold catches up with the couple just after their wedding, and after a fight with Gerald, takes Letty away to the Boyd family home in New York. He introduces her as his own wife because, he says, he wants to save her reputation. Even Letty's parents do not know to which brother she is married. Letty's stay in the mansion opens her eyes to the world outside of her rural environment and eventually she realizes that while Arnold appears to be hard and uncaring, it is really he, not Gerald, whose feelings for her are the deepest. When she realizes Gerald's true character, Letty decides that she will be happier with Arnold.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

The story of David Harum, a small-town banker, and how what he does and who he is affects the lives of everyone in his town, whether they--or he--realize it.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Jim Hackler is the political boss of a small town. When local lawyer Elias Rigby decides to run for Distrct Attorney, Hackler sees a chance to get revenge on Rigby--years ago both men were in the Army and best friends, but Rigby had intercepted letters to Hackler from his sweetheart, and wound up marrying the girl himself. Hackler persuades Rigby's daughter's fiance' to run against him, but things don't quite work out the way he wanted.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Steve O'Dare, a rich young man who has lived on his Nevada ranch for some years, returns to New York for a visit. He goes to the University Club, of which he is a member, for a week of New York gaiety with his club companions, but fails to get thrills out of the pleasures of the Great White Way. While lunching at a country club, he tells the boys that there isn't a thrill in Manhattan. And then, through an open doorway he sees at a table in the garden outside a middle-aged couple of distinguished appearance--and a beautiful girl. Upon inquiring of his companions who the people are, he learns that they are the Count and Countess Marinoff and their ward. One of his pals offers to bet him $5,000 that if he will stay in New York a week he will get the thrill of his life. Steve takes the bet. Remembering that he has sold stock to Count Marinoff he wonders whether it might not be possible for him to meet the ward. The problem is solved when the Count calls Steve up and asks him to come to his home. Steve goes and meets the ward, who mystifies Steve by making mysterious signs to him. The Count informs Steve that the girl is crazy. The girl's maid passes Steve a note that says the girl is in great peril and wants him to help her. The Count being called away, the maid directs Steve to go up to the second floor. Ascending the stairs he drops through a trap door on the landing and is bound and gagged by the Count's butler, but the maid releases him, and he telephones to the boys at the club and asks some of them to come out to the Count's house. The boys come, and a battle follows between the Count and his servants on one side, Steve and the clubmen on the other. Steve battles up through the house to the roof with one of the Count's henchmen, who has carried the ward off in his arms early in the conflict. After finally knocking the villain cold Steve searches for the girl but cannot find her. All the men who have been fighting, both his friends and the Count have mysteriously disappeared. As he is at his wits end he sees the face of the butler peeping through a sliding panel in the wall. The panel quickly closes and Steve kicks his way through it and finds himself in a banquet hall where the whole company of his friends and supposed foes are dining together, the persecuted ward beaming at him from the end of the table. The friend with whom Steve made the bet now explains that he has been given the promised thrill, the members of the party, except the clubmen, being members of the theatrical profession, especially engaged for the doings. Just then there arrives four of Steve's cowboys, for whom he telephoned at the same time that he telephoned the club. With their aid Steve quickly turns the tables on the jokers. While cowboys cover the party with their guns Steve announces that he, like Lochinvar, came out of the West, grabs the girl, and rides away with her. She is a not-unwilling captive, and as hour later the weary party still held under the guns get a wireless from Steve that he is quite willing to pay his bet; he has had the thrill of his life, for he is married and sailing away on his wedding tour.