Must-Watch List Comparable to the Style of If My Country Should Cal...

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

Nenette Bisson, who dances in her father's French restaurant in New York, takes a joy ride with "Kink" Colby in a stolen car, and is shot in the shoulder by a pursuing policeman. The driver leaves her at the hospital of David Kendall, with whom she falls in love, but he, believing French women to be frivolous, does not return her affections. Nenette's parents turn her out when they learn of her trouble with the police, after which she becomes a success on the stage. David serves overseas for two years during World War I and there learns to appreciate the valiance of French women. On his return, he proclaims his love for Nenette and helps her achieve a reconciliation with her parents.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

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

Louis and August Siever, twin sons of a German father and American mother, are traveling through Europe when war breaks out. August joins the Kaiser's army, while Louis, a loyal American, is trapped in Berlin for a year while he tries to prove his citizenship. After a violent confrontation with Louis, August steals his brother's passport and leaves for New York City with Gerda Anderson, a German spy. Louis also returns to the U.S., and sometime later is invited to a weekend party on Long Island by his wealthy friends, the Waynes. When August and Gerda learn of the event, they rent a nearby house and invite all of the Waynes' guests, including Louis, to a "mystery" party. Upon their arrival, the women are held prisoner and ransom notes are sent to their husbands via carrier pigeon. Shirley Wayne and Louis track down and are captured by the kidnappers. Meanwhile, Mortimer Eddington, an amateur detective, devises a method to trace the pigeons back to the house. Before Shirley and Louis come to harm, police officers arrive and demand the Germans' surrender.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

Mary and Fannie Graham are forced to live with their criminal father when their mother dies. Mary flees, but Fannie remains with her father and is reared as a thief, becoming known as "Flash" Fan.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Girl in the Checkered Coat perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

While awaiting the train to Broadway, Nell Baxter meets the leading man of a repertory company to whom she confides her ambitions. Upon arriving in the city, Nell attracts the lascivious eye of stage manager David Montieth, who eventually gives her the starring role in a play with the expectation that he will be favored with her affections. Nell, however, has fallen in love with playwright Paul Neihoff. On the afternoon that the show is to open, Montieth learns of Nell's romance and cancels the show. Nell goes to Montieth's apartment to plead with him to open the show, and he consents after setting Nell's virtue as the price of her ambition. When he attempts to collect, Nell stabs him and rushes to Neihoff's apartment. The playwright tells her to go to the theater as if nothing has happened, writes a letter confessing that he killed the manager, and then takes an overdose of a drug and dies. Word comes to Nell after the second act that Neihoff has sacrificed himself, and in the last act, she substitutes a real dagger for the fake one and stabs herself to death. It has all been a story, however, concocted by the leading man to cure Nell of her infatuation with the footlights, and no one has died.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

An unusual story about the crossing paths of the poor Italian family of sculptor Giovanni (Lon Chaney) and reckless American millionaire, Cyrus Kirkham (Gilmore Hammond). Louise Lovely plays two parts: Giovanni's wife Leonita, who comes to grief when Cyrus falls in love with her; and Giovanni's daughter Elisa, whose beauty brings a horrific resolution to the two families' woes.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

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

After divorcing his first wife and marrying a more gentle natured woman, Ralph Hadley finds himself again attracted to his ex-wife, a shrewd business woman. Trouble begins when he foolishly invites her to lunch, setting gossipy tongues-wagging. The news reaches his devoted wife who has discovered she is pregnant. She confronts the ex-wife who agrees to never see Ralph again and marries another admirer. Devasted, Ralph decides to kill himself ,luckily he is found in time by the doctor with the good news of the birth of his child. Ralph regains his senses and the couple are happily reunited.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

Joe Lawson, a corrupt gold miner, kills his partner, his partner's wife and his own wife for the mine, and steals his partner's child, while abandoning his own child. He starts an outlaw town. 20 years later, his son returns as does his partner, who's not really dead, but is rather unhappy.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

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

A young author is so overjoyed at selling her first book that she unknowingly signs over all her rights to the greedy publisher. Later, after the book becomes a best-seller, the publisher's nephew (who has fallen in love with her) tries to help her get her rights back.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

Montgomery Seaton, one of the idle rich, makes a hobby of befriending everybody upon whom he can intrude his good offices. Thus occupied, he neglects his wife considerably, and she in turn gives her entire attention to household duties. Vera Lane is a rich widow with whom Ernest Courtney is in love but too bashful to pursue. Mrs. Hammond comes to Seaton in distress with the story that some years earlier, she left home with a married man and lived with him for several months. Upon discovering that she had been deceived, she returned home and later wed John Hammond. Some weeks after her marriage, her husband was called away on a business trip; while he was gone Mrs. Hammond became the mother of a child, the result of her conduct previous to her becoming Mrs. Hammond. She concludes with the statement that the nurse who has always secretly cared for her child has just died and that the child must be provided with a home. Seaton goes to Hammond and relates a story which in substance makes Seaton the child's parents, and induces Hammond to adopt the child; thus Mrs. Hammond receives into her own home the child of her illicit adventure. Later Mrs. Hammond writes to Seaton, telling that the child safely arrived in her home, and further makes clear the unfortunate condition under which the baby was born. By mistake Seaton gives the note to Hammond; upon reading it, Hammond concludes that Seaton played a trick on him and induced him to adopt the issue of an affair between Mrs. Hammond and Seaton. That very night, while attending a reception, Hammond discovers Seaton and Mrs. Hammond in confidential conversation. Hammond shoots, but the bullet strikes Mrs. Hammond, who has thrown herself in front of Seaton to protect him. Coincident with these details, Seaton undertakes to present Ernest Courtney's love affair to Vera Lane, the widow, in convincing fashion. While progressing with this purpose. Mrs. Seaton becomes suspicious of her husband and is doubly mystified when she sees him carrying the child to Mrs. Hammond's home. Since she witnessed Mrs. Hammond's shooting and is a friend of all the concerned parties, the widow attempts to straighten the various entanglements, and succeeds so well that the Seatons reconcile, as do the Hammonds, after Mrs. Hammond has told her husband of her past.

Dir: Joseph De Grasse

Young ballet dancer Bobbie Brent has lost her parents and must care for herself and her younger brother and sister. To keep the children, she pretends that they are her own children and not her siblings. Jack Stinson, her boyfriend, is aghast at this deception and breaks up with her. However, Jack's old girlfriend Velma is still jealous of Bobbie and comes up with a scheme to get rid of her once and for all so she can have Jack all to herself.