Masterpiece Selection that Capture the Essence of In Search of Arca...

Dir: Bertram Bracken

A thousand dollar prize is offered to the winner of a dog race, and Jan Ducet would have used the money to doctor up his little child's bad leg if he had won. But he lost; and the winner, Otto Franke, runs away with Jan's wife. A priest takes care of the little girl while Jan gives chase and finds the regretful woman in the snow. A fight follows and Jan hurls Otto from a high cliff and returns home with his wife.

Dir: Bertram Bracken

In Paris, wealthy young American Horace Martinache takes a young flower girl to a hospital after knocking her down in his auto, and leaves money with friends to pay for her education. Years later, when Horace's nephew Eric plans to bring home a young actress whom he met in Europe and wants to marry, Horace's mother and sister ask for his help in breaking up the romance. Horace, an unmarried colonel, indulges them and agrees to court her to make her lose interest in Eric. The actress, Sara St. Ypriex, recognizes Horace as her benefactor and encourages him. Horace, unaware that Sara was the flower girl, falls in love with her. After Eric fails to respond to Sara's cries of alarm when one of her other suitors, Roscoe Vandercourt, tries to attack her, Horace protects her, but Vandercourt escapes. Sara accepts Horace's marriage proposal and Vandercourt, really an international crook, is trounced by Sara's father, who earlier served a prison term because of Vandercourt's treachery.

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

Dir: Bertram Bracken

A priest hears a murderer's confession but can't reveal the truth, even though his brother is being tried for the crime.

Dir: Bertram Bracken

Dave Scott, a wealthy mine owner, is killed. His daughter, Marie, goes to her father's old friend Richard Clark, knowing that he will take care of her interests. Clark and his grown son, Ted, become attached to Marie. Innocent in manner, she sees no necessity for concealing her preference for the elder Clark. In time, Ted's attachment culminates in a proposal, which is rejected. Ted accuses his father of standing in his way and the father makes Marie promise that she will accept Ted. A few minutes before the time set for the ceremony, a note from Ted explains that he realizes the love that exists between Marie and his father, and rather than exact the sacrifice, he has left his father's home, leaving them free to marry.

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

Dir: Bertram Bracken

In a prologue, blind poet John Milton dictates Paradise Lost to his daughters. Serama, the consort of Lucifer, is driven from Paradise by the Archangel Michael, who commands Conscience to enter human souls to judge and punish them. In the main story, society girl Ruth Somers, a reincarnation of Serama, prepares to marry Cecil Brooke, the wealthiest man of her set. Her guardian, Dr. Norton, an incarnation of Lucifer, constantly accompanies her. Ruth is summoned to the Court of Conscience, where the witnesses, Lust, Avarice, Hate, Revenge and Vanity, testify about Ruth's history of seducing and abandoning men. This behavior resulted in the suicide of Madge, the lover of Ned Langley, whom Ruth enthralled and promised to marry, and also the deaths of two rivals for her love. Ruth is ordered back to earth to learn her sentence. When Ned interrupts the wedding, Ruth scorns him and he shoots himself. After Brooke leaves her, the Court dooms Ruth to live with the torment of remembrance. Ruth sends Norton away, then kneels and repents.

Dir: Bertram Bracken

From Alphonse Daudet's 1884 novel comes a variation: A scheme by a beautiful vamp to marry a wealthy young man fails, and the woman returns to her former lover, a sculptor. She is shocked to discover he has committed suicide, and the tragedy catapults her into insanity.

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

Dir: Bertram Bracken

Cashier Clay Randolph is taken by Richard Dunlap, a swindling gambler, into embezzling $5,000. When Richard loses the money, Clay assumes the responsibility for the crime to protect his former sweetheart, Mary Singleton, who has married Richard. Mary's father, Col. Robert Singleton, gives Clay a copy of Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health to help him start a new life, but the young man ignores the book and leaves for New York, where he becomes a gentleman thief. Mary and Richard soon leave the South and join him. When Steele, a millionaire, tries to implicate Mary in the supposed theft of a diamond necklace, Clay retrieves the jewels and returns them to the safe. Reciting from Science and Health , Mary telepathically warns Clay not to rob Steele's safe, and later Richard is killed while committing the crime Clay had planned. To redeem himself, Clay enlists in the army to fight in World War I, promising Mary that he will return.

Dir: Bertram Bracken

Harry Larrabee, a young playwright, lives in the same studio apartment house with Carolyn Vaughn, a painter of miniatures, with whom he falls in love. "The Wolf," a famous criminal, supposed to be dead, returns and communicates with his wife, a friend of Carolyn's. He forces his wife and her brother to aid him in a plot to rob Carolyn of her valuable jewels. Harry, by one of his famous "inspirations," discovers that a crime is being committed, rescues Carolyn and bears her away in a taxicab. He is himself suspected of the crime, but, undisturbed by the web of circumstance by which he is entangled, his wonderful inspirations give him the key to the conspiracy which led up to the crime. In an unusual and powerful finale the guilty parties fight among themselves and justice triumphs in an exciting climax.

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

Dir: Bertram Bracken

In a prologue set in ancient Rome, the pagan Valerain attempts to abduct St. Cecilia to his debauched birthday feast, but her spiritual beauty stops him, and he kneels before her. In the main story, Conchita Cordova sings in the cathedral choir in her village of San Miguelito near the Rio Grande. Millionaire oil man John Rannie, whose oil fields have displaced the peasants, desires Conchita, and when he learns that her fiance, Juan Mendoza, has been employed by Adolf Wylie, a German spy, Rannie threatens to expose Juan unless Conchita gives herself to him. Although disillusioned, Conchita decides to save Juan, but as she removes her cross, Rannie is moved by her sacrifice, and begs forgiveness. Meanwhile, the villagers, incited by Wylie, set Rannie's fields on fire. When Juan, thinking that Conchita loved Rannie, throws her cross in the fireplace and places it on her breast as a brand of shame, she rebukes him. After Conchita saves Rannie from being burned by the villagers, he kneels beside her in church. In Rome, Valerain kneels before St. Cecilia.

Dir: Bertram Bracken

A woman leaves her husband and children for mistaken reasons. After being thought killed in a train crash, she returns in disguise to be the children's governess.