Masterpiece Selection Resonating with the Themes of Jaffery: Cult G...

Dir: George Irving

Louise Lloyd comes to New York to obtain a position and applies to the Hollister Employment Agency, which caters to high class trade, but which is run by a crook and forger named Wilson, with a Mr. Hollister as figurehead, who meets the people and sends applicants. Wilson falls in love with Louise, but she does not reciprocate. Wilson passes a forged check and decides to leave the city till the excitement blows over. Hollister gets him a position with a Mr. White, Toledo millionaire, as private secretary. When the New York job blows over, Wilson returns. While at the White home, he has noticed that Mr. White's New York representative resembles him and plans to cash a check on White's account, disguising himself as Mr. Hart, the New York representative. This he does by forging a check for $35,000 instead of $35.00, his salary. He divides the profits with his co-conspirator, Hollister. The bank calls to its assistance a celebrated lawyer, Edward Knowlton, who, desiring to engage a companion for his elderly sister, stops with his son, Frank, at the Hollister Agency. There the Knowltons meet Louise and offer her the position, but Wilson wants to keep her out of the situation so that, in her poverty and distress, she will accept Wilson's proposal of marriage. Unable to get Louise, Knowlton leaves orders to send someone. When Wilson learns that Knowlton has taken up the case, he says he must get in Knowlton's house as a servant of some kind to watch what clues Knowlton finds. He tells Hollister to send Louise, where she is installed in the house as companion. By her wonderful charm and sweetness, she captivates the entire family, including the son, Frank. Wilson soon finds a way to install himself as valet to Knowlton, just at the time when Knowlton's clues lead him to certain suspicions. As these suspicions point to him, he decides to put Knowlton out of the way. Knowlton and his son, Frank, after dinner, have a parley on the division of the Knowlton property. The will, as made, gives Frank the greater share of the property and Frank's sister the smaller part, whereas Frank believes his sister's share should be increased to equal his own. When the family has gone to bed, Wilson finds Knowlton alone in the library. Wilson strikes, there is a struggle, and he leaves Knowlton for dead, after having stolen and changed the will so that it goes back to the original unequal division of the estate. The body is found and the police called. Wilson, who is supposed to have left for Brooklyn, enters. Questioned by the police, he says the only suspicious circumstances that he noticed was the quarrel over the will between the son and father. The police get the will, notice the change in the son's favor, and accuse the son of the murder. Louise, who has had her suspicions of Wilson, takes the will and says, "Whoever changed this will left a finger mark and blot on the paper." Wilson slyly looks at his hands and. as he does so, Louise calls the police's attention to his queer acting. She orders him arrested, and Wilson, frightened, says, "But I have no blot on my hand," and she holds out the will and says, "Nor is there such a blot on the paper." Wilson, realizing that he is tricked, attempts to escape, but is caught and led away by the police. Louise is taken into Frank's arms as the doctor comes from the father's room saying that Mr. Knowlton will live.

Dir: George Irving

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of John Glayde's Honor perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

John Glayde is a stone-hearted man intent on wealth to elevate his family, losing his wife to another man in the process.

Dir: George Irving

Louise Parke runs away to Paris with her lover Stephen Underwood, but because her mother, Mrs. Treadway Parke, misses her so deeply, she sends a wire announcing her return home. When the boat on which she is scheduled to sail is torpedoed, Mrs. Parke's physician, Dr. Granville, becomes concerned for her sanity and asks Peggy Murray, a newsstand girl who bears a remarkable likeness to Louise, to pose as the missing girl. At first the masquerade is successful: Mrs. Parke is happy and Peggy falls in love with George Landis. Soon, however, Louise returns unharmed, and Peggy slips away quietly. George finds Peggy working in the department store owned by his father and proposes. On their honeymoon cruise, the couple is surprised to encounter two more newly married couples: Stephen has married Louise; and Mrs. Parke has become Mrs. Dr. Granville.

Dir: George Irving

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

Edward Swinger contrives to win the hand of the lovely Caroline Pickering by selling her father his business - a business that doesn't actually exist.

Dir: George Irving

Daughter of an Eastern lumber king, Stephanie Trent travels in the guise of a schoolteacher to the logging village of Trentsville to search for "a real man." There she meets Jimmy Raymond, a young novelist posing as a local while writing his story. When Stephanie comes to Jimmy's cabin to report a supposed plot against him, he acts as though he intends to assault her. She nearly throws herself out the window but is stopped by Jimmy, who explains that he is working on a novel and merely wanted to determine a young girl's reactions. In retaliation, she orders that he be kidnapped and held in a nearby cabin, but remorsefully nurses him back to health when he is shot trying to escape. They meet again at a hearing in the city, where her father has filed an injunction to prevent publication of Jimmy's novel, and she consents to his proposal of marriage.

Dir: George Irving

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

Gentleman burglar Raffles tries to get his hand on a priceless pearl.

Dir: George Irving

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Irving

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

A farce in which the German Kaiser and the Crown Prince are defeated and made sport of by a plucky American girl and several American prisoners of war.

Dir: George Irving

Aerial dancer La Syrena, whose jealous husband kills her while she performs in midair. Her daughter, Jennie Raeburn, soon orphaned, grows up unaware of her mother's occupation, but nonetheless feels the urge to dance. She makes a successful stage debut and gets caught up in the social world of the theater. A cousin from the country, Zachary Trewehella, who has always loved Jennie, disapproves of her sudden obsession with wealth and status, but Jennie ignores his warnings. As a result, she has a disastrous affair with a society man, and realizes that her cousin was correct. In the end, bitter over her last affair, she reluctantly marries Zachary, but soon falls in love with him.

Dir: George Irving

Viola Donizetti emigrates from Italy to the United States, running away from her father and the fiancé he has chosen for her, determined to rejoin Tony, her sweetheart. Unable to find Tony, however, Viola begins a relationship with the wealthy Collingswood, but leaves him when she discovers that he has a wife. Then, Viola finally locates Tony, with whom she makes plans to get married. Before the ceremony, they check into room 47, while Collingswood, obsessed with Viola, goes to the hotel and moves into room 48. He writes a suicide note citing his failed affair with Viola as the reason for his actions and then shoots himself. When Tony reads the note, he decides to leave Viola, but the priest who has been summoned to perform the ceremony persuades him to forget about the letter, and then, finally, Tony and Viola marry.