Must-Watch List in the Vein of Fatherhood: Cult Guide

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

An adventurer, who goes by the nickname "Burning Daylight", strikes it rich during the Alaskan Gold Rush. After he achieves wealth and success in the Klondike, he sets out towards 'the lower 48' (the continental U.S.) to find new challenges, but his money making abilities do not prepare him for the vicious cons and manipulation of Wall Street. He is soon cheated out of his entire fortune, but the 'hero' now has learned the lessons 'of the street', and fights to become a success again, with the knowledge that it takes a scoundrel to beat a scoundrel.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

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

When Billy Balderson and his two cronies, Charlie and Ed, get together on Bill's porch to discuss the high-handed ways in which the railroad is putting it over on the farmers, cross-roads politics develop a latent spring of eloquence, and poor, dowdy little Addie, Billy's wife, thinks that her husband is the most wonderful orator she ever heard. A few days later they dress-up in their second best and go to a meeting on the Common, where George Marshall, suave, well-dressed and condescending, explains to the voters that the railroad is their only hope of salvation and that in the approaching election they should vote for representatives who will support that institution. Billy questions Marshall. The crowd is with Billy, and almost before he knows it he is on the platform, annihilating Marshall's argument in a rousing speech. Between excitement and pride Addie is reduced almost to hysterics, and when Charlie, seizing the psychological moment, nominates Billy for the Legislature, she is nearly overcome. The most exciting days of her hard-working, colorless life follow, culminating in the fete day when Billy entertains all the townsmen at their farm to celebrate his election. With their arrival at the State Capitol a new era begins, and Addie soon learns that the years of drudgery and plain living on the farm are poor preparation for coping with the political circle of the State Capitol. Shy and bewildered, and lacking the poise that a sense of his position gives Billy, she quickly finds herself outstripped by him in adapting themselves to the changed conditions of their lives. Addie can only look nervously about and wish she was at home; as she and Billy attend their first reception and she notices the covert laughter of the people about them. Two persons notice them particularly, George Marshall, the speaker Billy answered during the campaign, and his wife, Myrtle. As Billy is recognized as a coming man, and his vote will be needed on an impending railroad bill, Marshall quietly gives his instructions to Myrtle, then recalls himself to Billy, and tries to put him and the embarrassed Addie at their ease. Taken up by the Marshalls, Billy makes rapid progress in the social life of the capitol, but only until Addie learns that Mrs. Marshall is monopolizing her Billy's time, and that she herself is looked upon by the women of the political circle as a poor little frump with no spirit. With a blank signed check from Billy, she calls in the services of Mme. Pauline, proprietor of a beauty parlor, and the result is so astoundingly transforming that she can hardly believe her eyes. She passes Billy on the street and he does not know her, though the thought flashes through his mind that his little country mouse of a wife might have looked like that. When he reaches home, there is Addle, still the little, dowdy country mouse, who seems to shrink from the very thought of the reception and ball to which they are invited, and who later sees him off to it with an air of relief. The relief at least is not feigned, for it has been hard work to keep Mme. Pauline and her maid quiet in the kitchen, while she gets Billy out of the way. The transformation takes place quickly, and the country mouse appears at the ball as a wonderfully charming and brilliant woman. Marshall is distinctly impressed, and so ardently seized the opportunity of persuading Addie to influence Billy's vote on the railroad bill, that Billy is furiously jealous. The denouement is cleverly turned to a comedy finish and the play closes happily as Addie begins to teach her husband the tango.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

The cruel captain of a schooner dominates the shipwreck victims he picks up.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

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

From a hard-won leadership of a hoodlum gang in Oakland, Cal., from a beach-comber's life in the South Seas, and from the inferno of the stokehole, Martin Eden, an unlearned sailor, wins his way to fame and fortune. But it is not until great odds have been conquered and much has been sacrificed that the goal is reached. And then it is too late. The odds are ridicule, poverty and lack of education. The great sacrifice, love. A chance meeting, in his hoodlum days, with Arthur Morse, a college man, proves the turning point of his life, for through him he meets Arthur's sister Ruth. This means the opening of a new world, and in the remaining reels of the play we see Martin's indomitable spirit and the development of his career. He makes two picturesque friends. One is Russ Brissenden, a poet, who encourages Martin when he sorely needs it, though his taking the latter to the Socialists' meeting had unfortunate results for the cub reporter as well as for Martin. The other is Maria, his warm-hearted Portuguese landlady, whose wildest flight of imagination, ""hoe all da roun' for da kids," Martin later is happily able to gratify. A third figure comes now and then into Martin's life: beautiful, wistful Lizzie Connelly, who loves him and whom he pities but cannot love. As in so many lives, matters are at their lowest ebb before the tide turns. Martin is penniless and without food or warmth. He has had only one sale of a manuscript in the many months of unceasing endeavor. Brissenden is dead. Ruth, losing her faith, has broken their engagement and refuses to see him. Then comes the sudden sweep of success, with publishers clamoring for his work and fame and wealth in his hand. But the tension that sustained him during his days of poverty and struggle breaks. Even Love, in the person of the repentant Ruth, knocks at his door in vain, and he sails for the South Seas, to find again, if he may, his old-time zest for life.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

A tale following a boys relationship with alcohol.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

To Cal Galbraith's cabin in the Klondike, one winter night, comes a starving, frost-bitten figure. Cal recognizes it as Naass, an Esquimau dog-driver, to whom he had lent sixty ounces of gold dust that he might buy release from the service, and who thereupon had left for a prospecting trip with Axel Gunderson and his wife many weeks before. Crouching by the fire, Naass tells his story. We see the feud in the Esquimau village between the descendants of two shipwrecked sailors, which terminates at the wedding plotlach of the last of the two lines, Naass and Unga. We see Axel carry Unga off to his ship, where he later wins her love and marries her. Knowing nothing of this, but always remembering the last appeal in Unga's eyes. Naass follows as best he can. From city to city he journeys, till a clue carries him to the sealing grounds. With Axel's ship in sight. Naass' ship is captured by Russians in waters forbidden to sealers, and he is sent to Siberia. Not even the horrors of the salt mines and the knout daunt him and he escapes, to make his way hack through Alaska to San Francisco. There he learns that Axel and Unga had left the day before for the Klondike, but at least he has a definite clue and a bait to trap Axel with in the shape of a map leading to a wonderful mine in the unknown mountains of interior Alaska, given him by a dying prospector, so with renewed courage he starts out again. At Dawson the long search is ended, but they do not remember one who had paid for Unga's love an untold price, and he easily persuades them to go with him in search of the mine in the mountains. The odyssey is over, the never-forgotten appeal in Unga's eyes will now be answered, and Axel is in his power. He destroys the caches for the return trip, kills the dogs, and watches with the exultation of the just avenger Axel's slow death from starvation and frost. Then when death has come to Axel and is very near himself and Unga, he reveals his identity, "I am Naass, the last of the blood, as you are the last of the blood." To his bewilderment, Unga laughs wildly, then denouncing him in a passionate outburst, throws herself beside the dead body of her husband and refuses to leave him. "But upon me there lay your debt, which would not let me rest. I repay." And giving Cal a bag of gold, taken from the far mountains, Naass turns again to the fire.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

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

That a fork was ever meant for anything but spearing bread never dawned on Frederica Calhoun until the arrival at her father's big Montana ranch of Lord Cecil Grosvenor, a prospective buyer. He opened her eyes to an hitherto undreamed of world of refinement and good form, and she in turn appealed to his imagination by her crack riding, her beautiful lariat dances which the cowboys had taught her, and her unfailing sweet disposition and sunny bubbling good spirits. But on their betrothal, with its subsequent visit to Lord Grosvenor's sister, a New York society woman the idyll showed a flaw. Redfern gowns, afternoon teas and the formal social routine of the patrician Knickerbockers did wonders for Frederica, transforming the cocoon into a butterfly. But to Grosvenor it was demoralizing, and word of his escapades reached Frederica's ears. The night of the French Ball she borrowed a suit of men's evening clothes and hid by a stage door where with her own eyes she saw her fiancé come out with the dashing show girl with whom his name had been connected. Indeed, Frederica's "young man" makeup was so complete that Grosvenor grew jealous when Frederica eyed his companion so straight and hard. The fatal breach was widened when Frederica's prospective sister-in-law peeked into her room after her return and deceived as her brother had been, felt it her duty to inform him she had seen "a man." This Frederica spiritedly admitted, inasmuch as the "man" was none other than herself, but Grosvenor presumed to wax furious, and the absurdity of such a stand disgusted her and she tossed the Englishman over. As a matter of fact, she was glad of the excuse, for she had all the time been playing straight with him only at the expense of holding off an old Montana sweetheart who had come to New York and made good. Her hands free, Frederica returned to a man whose word she knew was good as his bond, and, thanking her stars she had learned in time that a man was not to be judged by the way he handled a fork.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

A sheriff and his posse shoot it out with a gang of robbers headed by Bad Jake Kennedy. The surviving robber, Buckshot John, won't tell where the gang's loot is hidden and gets 30 years in prison. Halfway through his sentence he "gets religion" and in order to save his soul, decides to tell where the gang has hidden its stash of gold. However, a phony clairvoyant, The Great Gilmore, finds out about John's intentions and tricks him into revealing where the gold is. When John finds out what happened, he decides to break out of prison and take care of matters himself.

Dir: Hobart Bosworth

Artist Richard Alden goes to Laguna, California to paint the beautiful cliffs and shore which make this village one of the most talked-of places in Southern California. There he meets a young lady from the city, and their acquaintance soon ripens into love. For a while all goes well, and the little elfin sprite, a waif of the beach, who unknown to them watches them every day and weaves the dreams of romance and fairyland around them, sees only happiness. Soon, however, comes a young millionaire, and choosing between love and worldly ambition the young lady sails away with the millionaire, both questing for happiness along the paths of wealth and power. Brokenhearted, the artist feels that his pursuit of happiness has been in vain. How the little waif of the beach, budding into womanhood, shows him the true path, and how in later years the son of the rich man and the daughter of the artist bring the two men together again in a stirring revelation of what life has meant to each of them, is told in the latter part of this play.