The Definitive Watchlist Seeking the Same Brilliance as Help Wanted: Cult Guide

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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.

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Hudson Bay fur trapper Na-Ta-Wan-Gan, falls in love with Janet Mackintosh, the daughter of the factor at the trading post who has been promised to the deceitful Henri Drouet. After stealing skins from Mr. Mackintosh with the help of Red Pete, Henri hides the evidence in the mail bag of Janet's brother Robert. Caught with the stolen goods, Robert is declared guilty and sentenced to a three-day journey into the wilderness. To save his love's brother, Na-Ta-Wan-Gan claims to be the thief and is jailed by Mackintosh. Robert and Janet release the trapper from prison, and then he and Janet abscond to a missionary's hut where they wed. The couple makes a home in the woods with the help of Wehnonah, an Indian chief's daughter who also loves Na-Ta-Wan-Gan. While on his death bed, Red Pete confesses his part in Henri's crimes, and Henri is apprehended and sent on a long traverse . Only after a series of misadventures, however, does he come to justice and clears Na-Ta-Wan-Gan's name.

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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.

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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.

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

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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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.

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A ranch man saves a baby girl from Indians. Years later he unknowingly finds her and falls in love.

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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.

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To escape the dreary formality of her born life, Drucilla marries a missionary, Ferdinand Smith, and goes with him to Africa. Here her life proves anything but happy. Denied the pleasures enjoyed by most girls of her age, she endures her husband's cold severity as long as possible and then leaves him, returning to America, where she visits her old school friend, Letitia Proudfoot. It is while attending a reception with Letitia that she meets the poet, Forrest Smith, whose attentions are welcome after the austerity of the frigid Ferdinand. A friendship springs up between them which soon ripens into love. On the news that Ferdinand has been lost at sea, she and the poet marry. Love in a cottage is hardly more satisfactory to pretty Drucilla than life among the heathen. Forrest is not a good provider, and when she threatens a suit for non-support, he disappears, leaving a note of farewell pinned to his coat, which is found at the edge of the sea. Free again, Drucilla for the first time really falls in love, this time with Frank Smith, a wealthy club man, athletically inclined. Frank turns out to possess a very jealous nature. Drucilla puts up with his doubts and suspicions patiently, but before long a climax arrives which precipitates a suit for divorce. Drucilla welcomes this conclusion to her unhappy domestic affairs with relief and sets off with Letitia in search of repose. Now it happens that Ferdinand was not lost at sea, and Forrest did not commit suicide, and each develops a desire to be reunited with his wife. Forthwith they set out in search of her, and eventually meet at the same hotel. Here also comes Frank, who, too, has undergone a change of heart. Thus instead of finding repose, as she hoped, Drucilla is plunged deeper than ever into marital tribulations. Her tender heart prompts her to make up with Frank. But no sooner is this done than Forrest puts in an appearance and makes his claim. Drucilla cries, "I am a bigamist," but belated Ferdinand, entering the scene, answers, "No, you are a trigamist." Which one of the husbands will Drucilla take, and how will she evade the law? This is the question. The clever authors have so arranged that this will be a guess until the very last, and then it ends just right for everybody.