Editor's Top Picks Sharing the Atmosphere of Just Out of College: C...

Dir: George Irving

Loyal slave of the aristocratic Dabney family, Dan is overjoyed when Raoul becomes engaged to Northerner Elsie Hammond and his sister Grace becomes engaged to Elsie's brother John. When the Civil War breaks out, the heartbroken Hammonds return North and John joins the Union army. Raoul joins the Confederacy, but his vindictive overseer, Jonas Watts, becomes a Union officer. Watts takes Grace prisoner, but before he can act on his desires, John rescues her. He then encounters Raoul and is obliged to arrest him, but Dan comes to his aid by throwing red peppers into his captors' eyes. When John is arrested by Confederates, Raoul frees him for Grace's sake, but when his superiors discover his treason, he is sentenced to death. Stonewall Jackson, a family friend, tries to obtain a stay of execution for Raoul, but in the meantime, Dan visits him and convinces his master to blacken his face and take the slave's place. He does, and Dan is executed. After the war, Raoul and Elsie, and John and Grace marry and settle on the Dabney estate.

Dir: George Irving

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

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

Edward Thursfield, chief engineer of the bridge building firm of Henry Killick and Company, is building the largest concrete bridge in the world. Employed in the New York office is a young man named Arnold Faringay. Arnold sees an opportunity of using money from the payroll for a big deal. He takes the money, but the market goes against him. He seeks to borrow the $20,000 from Walter Gresham, his sister Dorothy's fiancé. Dorothy learns from Arnold that Thursfield is the big power in the firm and decides to follow him to Atlantic City where he has gone to look over the site for a new pier. She meets Thursfield at Atlantic City, and playing upon his sympathy leads him to propose to her. The confidential clerk of Henry Killick, has become suspicious of Arnolds accounts, and when Thursfield arrives he finds the errors, and Arnold is forced to confess before Thursfield. Thursfield is stunned at the thought of his fiancée's brother being a thief and to save her the disgrace he pays over the $20,000. Arnold thanks him and is sent home by Thursfield. He meets Walter Gresham and tells him that his shortage has been made good by a friend. Gresham returns to his house and receives a note from Dorothy breaking their engagement because of his selfishness. He bursts into the parlor as Thursfield holds Dorothy in his arms and demands to know from Dorothy who Thursfield is. Dorothy introduces him as her fiancé, whereupon Walter, realizing who the friend was who paid the money, denounces her before Thursfield. Thursfield demands the truth, and she admits that she did have that purpose, but that she really loves him now. Thursfield refuses to believe and leaves her. Next morning, Arnold sees that copper has made a tremendous jump. He finds that his money has made enough to pay back his stealings. Thursfield, his love for the girl overpowering his resentment, forgives her and calls her back to him.

Dir: George Irving

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

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

Dir: George Irving

Jaffery Chayne is the spectacular one of four chums, the others being Hilary Freeth, a literary man, Adrian Boldero, a short story writer, and Tom Castleton, a playwright. The story opens with Tom Castleton going on a voyage for his health and leaving with his friend, Adrian, the manuscript of the first novel he ever attempted. Shortly after Castleton's trip, he dies at sea and when word is received by Adrian of his friend's death, the temptation to secure the girl he loves by publishing his friend's novel and taking the money and credit from it is so strong that he succumbs and becomes the "literary lion of the hour." Jaffery returns to London with the widow of his associate, who is an Albanian chieftain's daughter, the last one of her tribe. Jaffery arrives in London with this strange woman and she is introduced into the household of Hilary Freeth and meets Jaffery's friends. Adrian brings his sweetheart, Doria, and when she is introduced to Jaffery, it is a case of love, on Jaffery's part, at first sight, he having no eyes for Liosha, the widow desperately in love with him. Doria, however, marries Adrian, supposed to be the great author, and Jaffery leaves Liosha in London and then goes on another expedition. On his return he finds Adrian dead. His love for the wife, Doria, is as strong as ever and he tenderly cares for her and takes charge of Adrian's affairs. When Jaffery and Hilary are appointed the legal executors of Adrian's estate they find the original novel in Castleton's handwriting and nothing that could be made into a second novel from the pen of Adrian. They realize that Adrian has stolen his fame and fortune and that his conscience really has killed him. Jaffery realizes that the knowledge of this will probably be the death blow to Doria, who has always worshiped Adrian as a genius, so he takes the papers home and puts them out of sight in his desk and then begins to go through his own experiences and from them he writes a novel, signs it with Adrian's name and gives it to the publishers as the second work of the literary genius. The novel does make a tremendous sensation. When Jaffery proposes marriage to Doria she refuses him. The former starts on a long voyage. Liosha begs to go, too. Jaffery consents. The result is the strengthening of the love of Liosha for Jaffery. Doria learns the perfidy of her late husband and offers to be the wife of Jaffery in gratitude for his self-sacrifice. Jaffery, however, discovers he loves Liosha and Doria releases him.

Dir: George Irving

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

Jack Brookfield, a famous gentleman gambler of Louisville, Ky., finds that he is possessed of remarkable psychic power. His intuition in card games and other games of chance seems to be the result of mental telepathy or mindreading and his power over other men is a combination of hypnotism and will. He dominates everyone with whom he comes in contact. As a young man, Brookfield was deeply in love with Helen who answered his proposal with a request that he give her a written promise never to gamble again. Brookfield resented her distrust of him and they drifted apart. Years afterward, Brookfield, now conducting a famous gambling house to which only the wealthy come, finds that Helen, who has been married and is now a widow, is again in Louisville with her son Clay, a youth of twenty-one. Brookfield sees in the eyes of the boy the reflection of his mother, and his old love for the mother is awakened. Brookfield gives a theater and supper party in honor of Helen's return to Louisville, and while the guests are enjoying themselves, one of the habitues of Brookfield's place intrudes and makes himself obnoxious to both the men and women of the party. He has been annoying Clay Whipple ever since Clay first came to Brookfield's gambling house, and the night of the party, this annoyance reaches its height. For generations, the Whipple family has had a strange obsession in the form of a fear and unexplained dread of the sight of a cat's eye, and this fear is most marked in Clay. At the dinner party. Denning, the pest, is wearing a large cat's eye pin, and as he torments Clay, the boy's eyes fall upon the dreaded cat's eye. Immediately he becomes half-crazed but tries to control himself. Clay rushes from the room, only to be followed by the drunken, leaving Denning, who is bound that the boy shall look at the pin. Finally Clay, driven to desperation, picks up a heavy ivory tusk, which Brookfield uses for a paper cutter, and kills Denning. One of the guests of the party is Frank Hardmuth, the District Attorney of Louisville, who is in love with Brookfield's niece, Viola Campbell. Hardmuth is jealous of Clay, who is the real object of Viola's affection. As a witness to the murder, Hardmuth sees a means of putting Clay out of the way and he conducts the trial himself, obtaining a verdict of guilty, and a sentence of death. There seems to be no appeal from the verdict until Clay's mother is looking over some old letters finds one from George Prentice to her mother. George Prentice has become a justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S., and Helen goes with Brookfield to obtain Justice Prentice's help. The Justice agrees to be a witness for the defense. The Justice gives his testimony at the trial and then he and Brookfield, who has recognized in one of the jurors a mind susceptible to his telepathic powers, tries to project, by telepathy, the thought that Clay should be acquitted. Frank Hardmuth, the prosecuting attorney, is now candidate for Governor and just before the first trial, Hardmuth and his corrupt political associates had tried to murder the then-Governor of the State, Scovill. Failing in the first attempt, Hardmuth had called at the gambling house where, sitting with Brookfield, discussing the attempt, Brookfield had thought of a way of killing Scovill, which thought was telepathically transmitted to Hardmuth, and when the murder occurred in exactly the way that Brookfield had thought of he realized and felt that he was partially guilty. While he and Prentice are awaiting the verdict in the second trial, the actual murderer of Scovill, a broken-down gambler named Raynor, comes to Brookfield seeking information about Hardmuth. Brookfield's suspicions are aroused and through the force of will power and hypnotism, he makes Raynor confess that Hardmuth instigated the shooting. He then telephones the news to the papers, believing that the mental reaction in the minds of the people against Hardmuth will influence the jury in their verdict. This actually occurs and a verdict of "Not Guilty" is brought in. Freed from the law, Clay is still afraid of the cat's eye, but Brookfield forces him to realize that it is a purely mental state of mind and makes him get the cat's eye pin and hold it before his eyes. And finally, to prove that Clay is entirely cured of that fear and also that he is not a coward, Brookfield sends him to Hardmuth's hiding place to bring Hardmuth back as he intends to help him escape, feeling that Hardmuth was more or less the victim of his telepathic suggestion. This Clay does, and Viola realizes that her sweetheart is now worthy of her love. Brookfield promises Helen that he will quit his gambling and she accepts his word for it, and the old romance is completed.

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.

Dir: George Irving

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Irving

At a lavish luncheon in Palm Beach, Walker Farr, a wealthy and idle young man, bets that he can live in perfect contentment as a penniless hobo and sets out to prove it. On the road, Walker meets Kate Kilgour and her fiancé, Richard Dodd, but upon his arrival in the town of Marion he learns that she is being forced into the marriage by her mother, who owes Richard $5,000. Walker helps a deformed but cheerful river man named Etienne Pickerone to retrieve the body of a woman who has drowned herself, and after reading the note found on her clothing, he goes directly to her house and adopts her little girl Rose-Marie. For a time, Walker works as an ice wagon driver to support the child, but a typhoid epidemic caused by contaminated drinking water strikes the town, and Rose-Marie dies. Having learned that Col. Simon Dodd, Richard's uncle and a corrupt local official, is responsible for the epidemic, Walker leads an election campaign that results in Dodd's defeat. After Kate settles her debt with Richard, which leaves her free to marry Walker, the "hobo" discloses his real identity, and all ends happily.

Dir: George Irving

A Lithuanian immigrant falls into financial hardship in Chicago when he loses his job due to cutbacks.