Masterpiece Selection Resonating with the Themes of It: Cult Guide

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

A burlesque dancer overcomes the puritanism of a repressed small town.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Susan, a wealthy young Easterner, is making her way across the country when she accidentally becomes separated from the train carrying her west. She finds herself in the clutches of a gang of bandits, who discover they've got more on their hands than they bargained for.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Leave It to Susan perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

A young woman goes to visit friends but mistakenly rings at the wrong address. She is greeted and taken in out of the storm by a handsome young man to whom she is immediately attracted. What she does not know, however, is that this young man has been fleeced by her father and has sworn vengeance against him.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Dorothy Dean, a wealthy young woman with modern ideas, abhors the institution of marriage but discovers that she must be wed in order to receive a wealthy relative's inheritance. Through Judge Roan, the family lawyer, Dorothy meets Don Morton, who agrees to accept a $10,000 check to marry her and then leave her in peace. After the ceremony, however, Dorothy's new husband takes her to a lonely island retreat where he tries unsuccessfully to win her love. Defeated, he leaves the island. In his absence, she is attacked by thieves and is fighting for her life when Don returns and rescues her. Dorothy now realizes that she is happy to have a husband, and the two embark on a real honeymoon.

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

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Jim Fenton helps rescue a falsely imprisoned inventor and assists him in avenging himself on the man who robbed him of his invention and of his freedom.

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

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

A young lady designs a wonderfully received bathing suit and saves her employer from financial disaster. In the course of this, she falls in love with her employer's son, who is in danger of ruin from a romantic scandal.

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

An English nobleman falls for and marries a beautiful young chorus girl. When he brings her home to the castle to meet his family, she is horrified to learn that she is niece, aunt, and/or cousin of all twenty-three of the staff of servants.

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

Dir: Clarence G. Badger

Homely schoolteacher Sam Lyman arrives from New England to settle in the Mississippi Valley town of Old Ebenezer, Arkansas while he studies law. During a game of forfeits given at the annual town social by Banker McElwyn, the richest man in town, Sam marries the banker's daughter Eva, the prettiest girl in town, in a fake ceremony. The couple later discovers that the marriage is legal and Sam offers to bow out, but Eva, who does not want to marry her father's choice, rich mule dealer Zeb Sawyer, persuades Sam to continue the marriage in name only. After Sam withstands slander from Zeb and McElwyn, they send night riders to horsewhip Sam and run him out of town, but he stays. When Zeb launches a run on McElwyn's bank, Sam saves it by depositing money he receives from writing a novel and bags marked $20,000, which are filled with horse shoes. Afterward, Eva refuses to have the marriage annulled.

Dir: Richard Smith

Two female candidates for Chief of Police live across the hall from each other, and their political rivalry follows them home, leading to plenty of hi-jinks.