Essential Cult Cinema Drawn from the Same DNA as Gates of Brass: Cult Guide

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

When Barbara Norton is left orphaned, she goes to live with her aunt and uncle. Time passes, now grown to adulthood, Barbara, becomes engaged to a wealthy young man who believes in pacifism. When the United States declares war on Germany, Barbara's fiance declines to enlist, and so Barbara gives him back his engagement ring and goes to France as a Red Cross nurse. En route, her steamer is torpedoed and Barbara is assumed to be drowned. Even this tragedy does not inspire the young man's patriotism and when solicited to enlist, he declares that the United States be damned. These sentiments shock an old friend of his father's, who brings the young man a copy of the book The Man Without a Country . Upon reading the book, the young man visualizes the story of Philip Nolan and is compelled to serve his country. As he is about to go to war, Barbara returns, and the two lovers embrace.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of One Dollar Bid perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Toby, a peculiar young man, lives in a shack in the Kentucky hills, spending his days drinking moonshine and whittling toys for the local children. Fearful of his influence, the villagers revive an old Kentucky statute whereby Toby may be sold into servitude for a year. Virginia Dare, horrified by these proceedings, purchases Toby for one dollar and returns with him to her Uncle Poindexter's tobacco plantation. Invigorated by his love for Virginia, Toby forsakes his whiskey habit and labors diligently on the plantation until his old friend Dink Wallerby, a moonshiner, begs Toby to care for his sick daughter Nell. En route to obtain medicine, Dink stabs a revenue officer with Toby's knife but confesses just before Toby is sentenced. Toby, at one time a lawyer, successfully defends Dink, after which a visiting judge proclaims Toby his son. Having regained his good name, Toby proposes to Virginia.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

Hillaire Latour, a warmhearted Canadian trapper, marries Rosalie Dufresne and then travels into the woods to seek his fortune as a lumberman. At the camp, he befriends "Spud" Lafferty, who for six years has tried unsuccessfully to return home with his money, each time falling prey to a beautiful woman who works in the saloon "down the hill." When Hillaire learns through a letter that he is a father, he asks for his money and begins the journey home, but on his first night away from camp, he enters the saloon, where he is robbed by the beautiful Louise. Forced to return to the lumber camp, Hillaire saves his money, but the next year he is cheated again. Louise is on the verge of robbing him a third time when Hillaire, in a rage, wrecks the dance hall and forces her to return his money. At the police station, Hillaire is reunited with his family, who have finally come in search of him.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

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

Frank Keenan, president of the Stillwater Railroad, demands that Hugh Tomlinson, an engineer who has been on duty for eighteen hours, make another run. Tomlinson falls asleep at the throttle, and a collision results. The engineer is discharged, and dissension spreads among his co-workers. J. Montgomery Nixon, the scheming president of the Central Railroad, tries to ruin the Stillwater system, but is foiled by Simeon Tetlow, of the latter company. Unknown to Tomlinson he is given aid by Tetlow, but the engineer continues to work against him. The differences between the two men are straightened out by the engineer's little grand-daughter, and after the grievances of the workmen of the Stillwater company have been settled, Tomlinson is appointed to run Tetlow's special train.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

Although John Lynch owns a ranch, he earns his living gambling in the mining town of El Monte, California. His father Elias, a Virginia gentleman chagrined by his son's gambling, leaves to live outside the town in a cabin with his friend "Twisted" Tuttle. 'Bige Rivers, a road agent who looks like John, abuses his lover Nita, a dance hall girl, who then is cared for by John and his daughter Mary. Rivers and his band rob the midnight stage of gold and kill all the passengers at the same time that John is in the vicinity to visit his father. Rivers and his gang divide the money at Tuttle's cabin where he shoots Elias. Before he dies, Elias accuses John of the shooting. Nita's screams upon discovering Rivers hiding, bring the mob, about to lynch John, too late to save her. John shoots Rivers and is then released.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

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

Lear is an old man blind to his weaknesses. He decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters according to who recites the best declaration of love. Goneril and Regan pretend to love him but treat him cruelly. Cordelia is loyal but, confusing honesty with insolence, he disowns her.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

A murderer is driven slowly insane by a sequence of coincidences and suggestive events which will not allow him to escape his own sense of guilt for his crime.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

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

When the circus comes to town, a mild-mannered man, whose good nature is viewed as weakness by wife, has the chance to prove himself when a lion escapes.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

Spoiled, lazy Harold Chester Winthrop Gordon finds that he has been disinherited, barred from seeing his sweetheart, and expelled from his club. He decides to reform himself and begins by crossing out his first three names with an "x." Thereafter known as "Three X Gordon," he says goodbye to pretty Dorrie Webster and sets out with his friend Archie for the West. Because they are penniless, however, they get only as far as a New Jersey town, where they become farmhands. Shocked at first by the long hours and hard labor, Three X and Archie soon find the work so physically and morally beneficial that they decide to establish a farm for the regeneration of millionaires' sons. The plan is a success, and Three X even makes a man of Dorrie's lazy brother. With the declaration of World War I, Three X proudly leads his clients into his country's service, promising to return to Dorrie.

Dir: Ernest C. Warde

Sailor Jesse, shipwrecked off the Texas coast, naively becomes involved with a cattle rustler. Because the sheriff believes in his innocence, Jesse finds work as a cowboy, but soon becomes infatuated with Polly, the medium for fake hypnotist Bull Brooks, and marries her. When he learns that Polly married to win a bet, Jesse attempts to take her from the town's influences to open spaces, but Brooks falsely reports that she killed herself rather than go. In the mountains, Jesse meets Kate Trevor, an opera singer who moved there to help her alcoholic husband who abuses her. After Trevor drowns trying to cross a river when he sees Jesse and Kate together, they marry, have a child, and are happy until Polly and Brooks arrive. Kate and Jesse separate, but when Jesse learns that Brooks is attacking Kate, Jesse fights him. Polly shoots Brooks, but before he dies, he reveals that Polly was married to another man when she married Jesse.