The Auteur's Selection In the Shadow of Enlevez-moi: Cult Guide

Dir: Léonce Perret

Mrs. Philip Mason commits suicide after she has an affair with Stephen Lee, a disreputable stockbroker, and sells her husband's securities so that Lee can buy stocks. When Lee goes bankrupt, he blackmails Helen Trent by threatening to reveal silly love letters she wrote to him before she married. Her brother, Willy Grosby, and his fiancée, Helen O'Neil, who lives with the Grosbys, go to retrieve the letters. While Willy waits outside, Lee is knifed to death as he attacks Helen. Lee's friend, Edward Wales, attempts to pin the murder on Helen by having Madame LaFarge, a clairvoyant, conduct a séance. In the darkened room, Wales, through whom Lee's spirit supposedly speaks, is about to name Helen as the murderer, but Wales, who sits in the thirteenth chair, is himself murdered. After Helen confesses to Inspector Donohue that Madame LaFarge is her mother, LaFarge, while conducting another séance, tricks Philip Mason into confessing to the murders.

Dir: Léonce Perret

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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

Dir: Léonce Perret

Leroy Trenchard loves Therese Verneuil, and when Leroy enters the army goes to France to fight, Therese follows as a Red Cross nurse. But suspicion arises that Therese is actually Princess Sonia, a German spy.

Dir: Léonce Perret

Count Fernand De Keramic plots against his niece in order to acquire her wealth to pay his debts.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Lafayette, We Come perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Léonce Perret

At a house party given by Doris Parker, the daughter of a retired sea captain, Doris' friends congregate to receive mail from their "adopted" soldiers in France. When one of them suggests that Doris write to Harry Townsend, who has no family or friends outside of the army, she writes a note and he sends her a friend's photograph since he has none of himself. Harry's letters awaken a love in Doris which causes her to deny the ardent entreaties of Captain Jack Tims. After Harry is wounded and thinks he will die, his farewell note inspires Doris to visit. After Doris convinces Tims to take her aboard his transport ship against naval regulations, a submarine attack results in Tims' death and burial at sea. Finding Harry's face covered with bandages, Doris nurses him to health, and then discovers that he is not the soldier in her photograph, but she realizes she loved him because of his letters. After the armistice they marry.

Dir: Léonce Perret

A moneylender kidnaps the young son of an rich widow as part of a plot to cheat her of her fortune. The boy is sent away on a fishing boat with the intention of drowning him, but a kindly old fisherman intervenes.

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

Dir: Léonce Perret

Playwright Harry Bryant while driving in a rural area, happens upon orphaned Kate astride a white horse, he is so charmed that he arranges for her to work at a nearby inn. Unable to tolerate the cruelty of the innkeepers, Kate runs away and seeks out Harry at his house in Story Brook farm. Charmed by her youthful exuberance, Harry falls in love with the uneducated girl and they marry. Harry soon becomes disenchanted with his illiterate wife, however, and seeks solace in his former sweetheart Diana Nelson. When he discovers that Diana is using him to further her social ambitions, Harry returns to Kate, who provokes his jealousy by paying daily visits to a mysterious apartment house. Finding out that Kate's secret rendezvous was with her tutor, Harry's love for his wife is rekindled.

Dir: Léonce Perret

Robert Hyde is a confirmed bachelor who has sworn never to marry. Not even the pleading of his two close friends, the pastor and the lawyer, will move him. But an automobile accident brings Clarice to his home and during her recovery, she and Robert fall in love. After their wedding, Clarice's happiness is marred by Robert's preoccupation with hunting and fishing. The pastor then advises her that she will never know real happiness until she has children. Shortly after this, Clarice's aunt, Mrs. Grosvenor, brings a large party of friends to the Hyde estate for a visit. They all plan to give a performance of William Shakespeare's Othello for charity, but the count annoys Robert by his lovemaking scenes with Clarice. After a startling dream in which Robert's Othello kills Clarice's Desdemona, Robert finds the count making advances in earnest, and throws him out. Robert then begins to pay more attention to his wife and soon Clarice finds herself pregnant and happy.

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

Dir: Léonce Perret

Young Kitty runs away from home to avoid marrying a man she doesn't love. Her car breaks down on a country road and she meets Robert, a young artist who has just been turned down by a woman he loved madly and is about to commit suicide by lying on the railroad tracks. He sees Kitty in trouble and decides to help her. They get the car running, but it runs out of gas in front of a farmhouse. The farmer, mistakenly believing that the two are married, has them share a bedroom for the night. The next morning Kitty's father shows up looking for her and discovers that she has "spent the night" with a stranger. Complications ensue.

Dir: Léonce Perret

Sisters Yancsi and Roszika Dolly are loved by Jack Hobson and Tom Hylan respectively, but the twins refuse to marry until they are as wealthy as their prospective husbands. Accordingly they agree, in exchange for a million dollars, to aid a celebrated psychologist who is developing a cure for an ailing maharajah. The maharajah inexplicably detests his bride, a beautiful princess, and the Dolly sisters are sent to his New York palace to learn the cause of his odd behavior. They soon discover that the maharajah has been hypnotized by his uncle, the Rajah Ismael, but the spell is broken when, after a series of dangerous adventures, one of the twins obtains a ring from the maharajah and gives it to the princess. As the maharajah takes his wife in his arms, the Dolly sisters return home with their million and prepare to marry their sweethearts.