Hidden Genre Gems In Alignment with the style of Condottieri: Cult ...

Dir: George Beranger

John Fenton visits a fortune-teller to gain insight into his parentage. While there, a police raid occurs, and he climbs the fire escape to the apartment above. There he finds a girl standing over the body of a young man who has just shot himself. The girl, Belle Charmion, explains that her half brother, Gordon Brewster, had stolen some jewels from their uncle and, fearing that the police would capture him, had attempted suicide. Fenton conceals the brother in another room and impersonates him when the police arrive. Later, he and Belle take Brewster to his uncle's home. In the excitement, the jewels have been forgotten, and Fenton returns to search for them. By this time, the family butler, who is a member of an underworld gang, has tipped off his friends, who then steal the Fenton jewels. At the butler's home, a scuffle ensues; Fenton recovers the jewels and learns that he is actually a distant relative of the Charmions, having been kidnapped in infancy by a crook. With both mysteries thus resolved, Belle and Fenton become engaged.

Dir: Donald Crisp

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

During the Civil War, young widow Rachel Hayne is among those "held by the enemy" when her old family home is within the lines occupied by the Northern troops. Protected by Colonel Prescott from looters and the unwelcome attentions of Surgeon Fielding, Rachel begins to fall in love with the gallant Yankee officer. Their romance is disrupted when Rachel's husband Gordon, long reported dead, is captured as a spy and condemned to death. When Gordon is wounded during an attempted escape, Rachel's loyalty impels her to try to save him by feigning his death. As Gordon's stretcher is carried through the hospital, Fielding demands an examination of the body, charging that Prescott is involved in a plot to smuggle the spy out of the hospital alive. General Stanton lifts the cover from the body, only to find that death has really come, freeing both Rachel and Prescott.

Dir: Maurice Tourneur

Having endangered his life by foolishly gambling away funds entrusted to him by the Carbonari, an Italian secret society, London banker Bernard Huddlestone appeals to Northmour, an adventurer, for protection. Northmour takes Huddlestone and his daughter Clara to his castle in Scotland, offering them safety in return for Clara's hand in marriage. There Clara encounters Frank Cassilis, an old adversary of Northmour's, and falls in love. Trouble brews between the two men, but when the Carbonari discovers Huddlestone's hiding place and storms the castle, the fugitives band together to fight the avengers. Coming to the realization that only his sacrifice will appease the attackers, Huddlestone steps out and meets his death. Northmour, deciding that married life would prove too monotonous, gives up his claim on Clara to Cassilis.

Dir: Maurice Elvey

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

A Royalist and his unknown son seek vengeance on his murdered wife's brothers.

Dir: Victor Heerman

In the gold fields of the Canadian Northwest, a man is falsely accused of a crime and determines that a lookalike is responsible.

Dir: Robert N. Bradbury

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Francis J. Grandon

A raft carrying a little girl and a dead woman drifts in from a shipwreck to Devil's Island. There, a band of thieves and smugglers name the girl Rose Marie, though she grows up as "nobody's girl." Living in a cave, she learns to read through the kindness of Jason, who is soon killed by the cruel leader, Red Gull. In Red Gull's power, and urged on by Jason's jealous wife, Rose Marie makes her escape in a rowboat, where she is spotted by an aviator flying above the sea. He rescues her, taking her to be cared for at his home where she is well treated. When newspapers report a mysterious shipwreck on Devil's Island, Rose Marie reveals the way in which Red Gull lured ships to their doom there. She guides the authorities to the island, where, after a fierce battle, the thieves are wiped out. Eventually the aviator falls in love with Rose Marie, and "nobody's girl" is somebody's sweetheart at last.

Dir: Josef Stein

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

Bela Lugosi plays a lascivious Arab sheikh confronting European travelers in the desert in an adventure story set in the Sahara.

Dir: George Beranger

Writer Frank Theydon goes undercover to research the criminal activity in New York City's Chinatown.

Dir: Charles Swickard

A young Egyptian goes to the rescue of his employers, a wealthy European family, when they are menaced by a local strongman and his gang.