Must-Watch List in the Vein of Fruits of Faith: Cult Guide

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Coarse country girl Sis Hopkins and general store clerk Ridy Scarboro are so engrossed in their dalliance that a basket is overturned and a large can of oil spills into a pool, creating a slow leak. Wealthy villager Vibert thus becomes convinced that Sis's farm is located on a pocket of oil, and he schemes to gain control of the property by marrying Sis. Vibert sends her to a young woman's seminary for refinement. Sis creates chaos in the school and is a problem for principal Miss Peckover. Vibert eventually realizes Sis will never measure up to his standards for a wife. Ridy, who has been jealous, is overjoyed when Sis returns home. Vibert entices Pa Hopkins into selling the property for a small amount, but Sis shrewdly succeeds in tripling the price. Finally Vibert discovers the can in which he has invested so heavily.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

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

An English nobleman falls for and marries a beautiful young chorus girl. When he brings her home to the castle to meet his family, she is horrified to learn that she is niece, aunt, and/or cousin of all twenty-three of the staff of servants.

Dir: Charley Chase

A young married couple volunteer to take charge of several orphans after the asylum has burned down. Of course they find their hands full with their troublesome charges.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

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

A young woman reads tales of a gallant White Knight and imagines that such a knight might come to rescue her from her dull existence. Although she is wooed by a wealthy industrialist, she rejects his suit in hopes that her romantic ideal might come. One day a young writer comes to her village, and it seems as if he might be the hoped-for White Knight.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Jim Fenton helps rescue a falsely imprisoned inventor and assists him in avenging himself on the man who robbed him of his invention and of his freedom.

Dir: Richard Smith

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

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.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

A young lady designs a wonderfully received bathing suit and saves her employer from financial disaster. In the course of this, she falls in love with her employer's son, who is in danger of ruin from a romantic scandal.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Jes' Call Me Jim perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A young woman goes to visit friends but mistakenly rings at the wrong address. She is greeted and taken in out of the storm by a handsome young man to whom she is immediately attracted. What she does not know, however, is that this young man has been fleeced by her father and has sworn vengeance against him.

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

An easy-going tramp with a love of food and an aversion to work suddenly gets deeply involved in the life of a farmer and his daughter.