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

Dir: Lois Weber

A pretty but poor girl leaves the young boy who loves her for a rich playboy who she believes will take care of her, but the wealthy cad has other plans for her.

Dir: Lois Weber

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of What Do Men Want? perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

An inventor starts a family with his childhood sweetheart, but after he becomes successful, he becomes restless and takes up with another woman. However, the woman's true nature is revealed, he realizes his mistake.

Dir: Lois Weber

Marie, a hotel maid, falls in love with millionaire's son Roger, but Roger cannot marry her because of her inferior station and his unwillingness to make his family unhappy thereby. They separate. When next they meet, Roger discovers that Marie is actually a princess. Now their renewed romance cannot continue because Roger is a mere commoner. But the Bolshevik revolution provides complication and at last resolution to their dilemma.

Dir: Lois Weber

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

Babe Scott, a cabaret dancer who is constantly searching for sensational material to shock her customers, thinks up burlesquing a Salvation Army girl and attends mission meetings on the East Side for atmosphere. There she meets Jerry Wilson, an honest truck driver and friend of the Army captain. Although the act is a success, Babe is disillusioned to find Lonnie, a fellow worker who has been romancing her, stealing her money and making overtures to Big Bertha, the hard-boiled club hostess.

Dir: Lois Weber

Plantation owner William Hawkes (David Newell) doesn't approve of the fact that most of the white men on the island have married, or are living with native girls. He doesn't approve of mixed marriages and is equally opposed to accepting the "gifts of love" offered to him by the native girls. One night, after several hours of hard drinking, he sees Leilani (Mona Maris) bathing on the beach, and he watches her until he can resist his craving no longer. He catches her in his arms and she willingly accepts his embraces. She comes to live with him and waits on him hand and foot. Hawkes goes to San Francisco for a planter's convention and, when he returns, brings back society girl Lucille Cheney (Virginia Cherrill) as his wife. Leilana is heart-broken, while Lucille becomes quickly bored with her husband and Hawaii. Her boredom ends when Chandler Morris (Hardie Albright) sails into port on his yacht and he and Lucille begin an affair. Hawks drinks to forget. He catches Lucille and Chandler together and a fight ensues, Lucille, in an effort, to save her lover throws a kerosene lamp into the ripe sugar cane and fire spreads in all directions.

Dir: Lois Weber

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

A Broadway actress becomes a star due to the guidance of her director. The two fall in love, but are prevented from marrying due to a clause put into her contract by her producer.

Dir: Lois Weber

Mary Regan, the child of an heiress who married a handsome thief hoping to reform him, then died when he went to prison, refuses to marry New York District Attorney Robert Clifford because she fears that the family's past will hurt his career. After refusing to cooperate with her father's gang members, Jim Bradley and Peter Loveman, Mary goes to the mountains. Bradley and Loveman get Jack Morton, a dissolute youth from a wealthy family, involved with Nina Cordova, an adventuress. After winning the trust of Morton's father, Loveman takes Morton to the mountains, supposedly to get him away from Nina, but really to involve him with Mary. Morton falls in love with Mary, and she marries him hoping to effect his reform. After Morton tries to hide the marriage from his father, the gang tries to blackmail Morton, Sr., but Mary contacts Robert, and after Morton is killed in a fight, the gang is arrested. Robert then convinces Mary to be true to her heart and marry him.

Dir: Lois Weber

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

Jewel stays with her grizzled, angry grandfather while her parents are overseas on business. Family squabbling is brought to heel through love and understanding from Jewel's pure love for others and trust in Divine Love

Dir: Lois Weber

Carillo and his wife Selma are devoted to each other. As a sculptor, Carillo has achieved the qualities of honor and love until the Devil seeks to overturn these accomplishments by sending his imps Lust, Drink and Self Pity to the artist's home. Carillo succumbs to lust and sells his honor to the Devil. When he loses love, he finally crumbles until Loyalty regenerates him when Selma carves Repentance under the shadow of the cross. This causes Satan to recoil, and the couple start a new life without Youth and Honor, but enriched by Wisdom and Experience.

Dir: Lois Weber

Ray Sturgis, leader of the fashionable Long Island jazz set, is engaged to "Egypt" Hagen, an up-to-date girl in every respect. Egypt is arrested at a roadhouse raid, and at her mother's bidding, the Reverend Norman Lodge arranges for her freedom. At a fancy-dress ball, when Ray wears a costume made of newspaper headlines concerning her arrest, Egypt is offended. Seen constantly in the company of Reverend Lodge, her reputation causes church people to take up the matter with the bishop. Leaving the country club, Egypt goes to the Lodge home and hides behind the door when the bishop arrives; Reverend Lodge wants to marry her, and they admit their love; but humiliation causes her to leave with Sturgis that night. Their yacht is wrecked, but Lodge and the bishop follow and rescue Egypt, though Sturgis is drowned. The bishop, realizing the depth of their love, consents to marry them.