Top-Tier Alternatives Exploring the Legacy of Lost in a Big City: C...

Dir: George Irving

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Irving

Mountain boy Steve O'Mara, living in the Adirondack Mountains, who loves to fight, is taken in by a well-to-do family after the death of his foster father. Steve is attracted by a young girl, Barbara, who is visiting his family, but she is repelled by his violent behavior. He fights another boy over her affections and then vows not to return until he corrects his ways and makes good. Ten years pass, and Steve has become a road construction engineer with the East Coast Railroad Company. He is trying to complete a railroad being built through his home town. Barbara is now engaged to Archie Wickersham, who for financial reasons is trying to prevent the railroad from being completed. After several delays, Steve brings his rival's unscrupulous business practices to light. When Barbara witnesses the fight that ensues between Steve and her fiancé, she runs off and gets lost in the forest. After a search party is formed, Steve finds her and she realizes that she loves him. Harrigan, one of her fiancé's henchmen, witnesses this tender scene and shoots Steve. Barbara then draws Steve's pistol and shoots Harrigan dead. Only wounded, Steve finally is embraced by Barbara.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Then I'll Come Back to You perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

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

Ne'er-do-well Joe Louden scandalizes his small town and especially the proper Judge Pike. But through the love of young Ariel Taber, Joe shows the town who the real scoundrel is.

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

Dir: George Irving

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Dir: George Irving

When the United States enters World War I, widow worries that she will lose her only son David, who has just turned 21. Although David patriotically urges the employees at his factory to enlist, he reluctantly gives in to his mother's pleas to remain at home with her. When David is drafted, his panic-stricken mother alters the date on his birth certificate, although the later birth date implies that he is illegitimate. Disgusted, David enlists under an assumed name, thus shaming Helen, who confesses her dishonesty to the townspeople. Her son, now in uniform, then forgives her.

Dir: George Irving

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.