The Definitive Guide Deeply Connected to Convict 993: Cult Guide

Dir: William Parke

The owner of a resort hotel promotes Tom Gwynne, a college boy working as a waiter, to manager. As a result of his mismanagement the hotel loses several thousand dollars. Tom inherits a million and buys the hotel to continue his experimental management, which is to give the employees time and opportunity for self-expression--to do what they like best to do. With the grounds full of acrobats, musicians, and dancers, the hotel goes bankrupt. The old manager returns, buys the hotel, but retains Tom--now that he has learned his lesson--as manager.

Dir: William Parke

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

Beam opens a boarding house and many interesting characters are introduced. She spreads her optimism to their lives. Also to her blind father by telling him army stories about her brother when in actuality, he's deserted.

Dir: William Parke

Mary's supposed father, Syd, trains her to believe theft is justifiable. Caught robbing a man's house, Mary escapes and Syd is jailed. Mary begins working as a locksmith. When she meets the man again, will he believe she's changed?

Dir: William Parke

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

Amos Winthrop, owner of the Winthrop newspaper syndicate of "yellow" journals, delights in posing as the patron of ambitious youth, and he appoints Allan Stone as business manager of the "Daily Pioneer" at Columbia. The Rev. Timothy Neal, compelled to resign his pastorate because of advancing years, arrives with his granddaughter Esther in Columbia, where the minister hopes to make a living selling books. The one failure in Amos Winthrop's life is his pampered son Roy; he sends him to Columbia to work as a reporter on the "Daily Pioneer" staff. Rev. Neal takes many and varied lessons in the gentle art of book-agenting but success does not come to him and Esther is at her wits' end trying to instruct her grandfather how to approach strangers. Their little store of savings dwindles. Jim Barnes is editor of the "Daily Pioneer" and he delights in applying big-city methods to a small-town paper. He prints sensational stories and is supported in his methods by young Winthrop. Stone, on the other hand, asserts that scandal about people kills advertising prospects. The owner of Columbia's largest department store is Henry Lawlor, and the Daily Pioneer advertising staff longs to secure Lawlor to an advertising contract. Pneumonia attacks Rev. Neal and he passes away, leaving Esther alone in the world. She has met both Allan Stone and Roy Winthrop. The time comes when the only hope of the "Daily Pioneer" is the Lawlor advertising contract. There is an agreement that if the paper fails to make a stipulated showing before a specified date, Allan Stone and Jim Barnes shall forfeit all claim to their respective shares of stock in said paper. Young Winthrop antagonizes Lawlor and it seems that the contract is lost. He prepares a story dealing with the purported elopement of Lawlor's daughter and the same is set in type. Esther, considering it a "spite story," burns the entire edition of the "Daily Pioneer," thus preventing the story from being read; she thus earns the gratitude of Lawlor, who gives the paper the advertising patronage. Amos Winthrop, summoned to Columbia, appreciates his son's foolishness and orders him to leave Columbia and return home where the father can keep an eye on the boy. Stone wins an allotment of stock in the "Daily Pioneer" and wins Esther for his bride.

Dir: William Parke

A lawyer is worried about his client. He's infatuated with a dubious woman who's scheming to get his money. The lawyer gets the idea to have him marry an honest woman and protect his fortune in her name, but who? "Cigars. Cigarettes."

Dir: William Parke

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

A young woman consents to a bad marriage to an unscrupulous man in order to save her father from ruin. When her marriage is disrupted by a murder, three different people confess to it.

Dir: William Parke

Reporter Will Campbell has himself arrested and imprisoned, where he gathers information to prove his theory that most victims of capital punishment are wrongfully condemned. Following his parole, Will finds work in a bank with the help of Minnie O'Reilly. When a detective is shot during an attempted robbery, Will grabs the gun and pursues the killer. However, Will is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder. His innocence is discovered too late and Will is hanged, seconds before the prison warden receives a stay of execution. Hoping to rectify the injustice, the warden allows a doctor to experiment on the body with adrenaline, and Will is brought back to life. After he is released, Will discovers that his nagging wife has divorced him and he reunites with Minnie.

Dir: William Parke

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: William Parke

As the S. S. Huron returns from her summer trip to Europe laden with many passengers, a mysterious lady in room 7 is never seen, and the whole boat starts to gossip about her. In the meantime, a puzzling telegram arrives for Peter Hale, the passenger in the room across hers, about a sign of the Double Cross and his father's will.

Dir: William Parke

An optimistic girl survives city life as a shoeshine until she ends up in Children's Court. Just as she helps her geranium, Sally, to grow, a kindly judge sees her potential and takes her to his mother's country home to flourish.