The Definitive Watchlist For Devotees of Detective K-9: Cult Guide

Dir: William Bertram

After he finds his wife Stella in the arms of ne'er-do-well Allan Standish, Ralph Gordon takes his daughter June out West, where he has extensive mining interests. The inhabitants of Hell's Gulch, who lately have been terrorized by "Rawhide" Pete and his gang of outlaws, elect Ralph sheriff. Standish, whose desertion of Stella has caused her death, arrives in Hell's Gulch and allies himself with Rawhide Pete, while competing with Ralph for the affections of June's governess, Sarah Malcomb. June assists in capturing Rawhide Pete, but Standish escapes and Sarah, moved by pity, agrees to conceal him. Assuming that Standish has again beaten him in love, Ralph catches a train East, but Sarah follows him and becomes June's new mother.

Dir: Richard Smith

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.

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

Dir: Edward LeSaint

When famous opera singer Elinore Duane undergoes an operation on her throat, she has a series of ether-induced visions. In one, she is transported to ancient Rome where she appears as a much-admired woman in love with Paul, a young heretic, and at odds with Lutor, the high priest. To save her love, she poisons Lutor with her ring. After several other visions which involve variations on this love triangle, Elinore awakens to discover that Lutor is actually her doctor, Sascha Jaccard, and that Paul is the son of a friend who has come to visit the recovering prima donna.

Dir: William Bertram

When Charles Lind is stricken blind, his brother John takes charge of his business affairs, while his little niece Marie reads his mail to him each day so that he may recite his replies into a Dictaphone. After John confesses that he has lost a great deal of Charles' money on the stock market, the two quarrel, and John nearly strangles his brother. Later, a shot rings out, and John is seen crouching by Charles' lifeless body. Following John's arrest, the detectives guarding Marie's house recognize Briggs, the butler, as a wanted criminal, and when he attempts to escape, they shoot him. Marie, in playing with her uncle's Dictaphone, discovers that his murderer's voice was captured on the recording. Played at the dying butler's bedside, the recording leads to Briggs's confession and John's release from prison.

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

Dir: William Bertram

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: William Bertram

Dora Tompkins divorces her alcoholic husband and moves to the city to look for a job. Her little daughter Marie dreams one evening of the "Jack and the Beanstalk" tale, which prompts her to climb up the fire escape to the apartment above. There she meets prizefighter "Giant" Jim Walton, her mother's former suitor, and soon he finds Dora a job in a florist's shop. They resume their love affair, and upon his promise to quit the ring, she agrees to become his wife. When Marie, however, in trying once again to scramble up the "beanstalk," falls and is seriously injured, Jim breaks his promise and wins a fight in order to pay for the child's operation. Unaware of Jim's motives for entering the ring, Dora spurns him, but when she learns the truth, she gratefully returns to him.

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

Dir: William Bertram

Christine, known as Tiny, whose mother eloped with a circus clown and became a parachutist, spends most of her time with her lame dog and an elephant. When the circus passes through her home town, Tiny's mother is rejected by her sister Sylvia, thought to be an old maid because of her all-consuming interest in mathematics. Seeing her mother depressed, Tiny convinces her father to join her for her nightly stunt of parachuting from a balloon. While Tiny plays with a precocious black child, her parents' chute fails to open and they die. Thinking herself friendless, Tiny attempts to drown herself, but her dog brings Sylvia and Frank Dodge, who loves her. Sylvia lets her other suitor, Professor Caldwell, who wants her fortune, direct Tiny's upbringing "scientifically," but after Tiny and Frank expose the professor's plot to destroy Sylvia's book on the fourth dimension, because it is better than his own book, Sylvia, who now loves Tiny, accepts Frank's proposal.

Dir: Alexander Butler

In Alberta, Canada, a Cornish emigrant unmasks a rustler posing as the girl's "blind" father.

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

Dir: William Bertram

Little Marie, terrified after her drunken father beats her mother, flees from the house. Finding herself alone after her father is arrested for the assault and her mother rushed to the hospital, Marie becomes attached to a little dog that she finds in the park. The maid who is walking the dog is unable to part the two, and so she brings the little girl home to the Greer mansion where Mr. Greer, desperate for the child that his socialite wife is too busy to give him, insists upon adopting Marie. After Marie's mother recovers, she is reluctant to deprive her daughter of the riches she may inherit, and so obtains the position of governess in the Greer household in order to be near her own child. Gradually, a deep attachment develops between Mr. Greer and Marie's mother. After Marie's father is killed during a jailbreak, and Mrs. Greer, suffering from her superficial existence, commits suicide, Greer marries Marie's mother and the reconstituted family begins a new life.

Dir: William Bertram

Instilled with the spirit of patriotism after her teacher reads to her the story of Joan of Arc, Marie Yarbell goes home, persuades her father to enlist and then organizes a "military company" comprised of her playmates. Wealthy old Nathan Mulhouser, who is financing the development of a torpedo, is so touched by the children's patriotism that he buys them a flag. Marie's mother rents out a vacant room to Hertz, a stranger, who instructs her to see that no one enters his room because he is working on an important invention for the government. Curious, Marie follows Hertz as he leaves the house carrying a suitcase. He goes to a building that houses Mulhouser's laboratory, tosses in a bomb and runs away. Marie disposes of the bomb in time, but is stunned by the explosion. Mulhouser finds Marie in a state of shock and takes her to his home. Meanwhile, Mr. Yarbell has returned home at his wife's alarm and finds Marie's soldiers holding the spies prisoner. Mulhouser finally ascertains Marie's identity, discovering that she is his granddaughter, and all ends happily.