Visionary Picks In Alignment with the style of Love, Hate and a Wom...

Dir: William Parke

Bruce Wendell, the son of West Virginia coal mine owner James Wendell, graduates from West Point and prepares to lead a fighting unit to the front during World War I. As his father lies dying, however, he convinces Bruce to remain at home and guard the mine. Bruce's fiancée Ann Blair assumes that he is a coward and breaks off their engagement, but her brother Bobbie remains Bruce's loyal friend. Meyer, a German agent, persuades railroad president Parrish to refuse to transport Wendell's coal, but when Bruce adamantly refuses to close the mine, the spy's men decide to blow it up. While Ann is being abducted by Meyer, Bobbie is buried in an explosion at the mine. Bruce rescues Bobbie and then sends a plea to Lieutenant Parrish to rescue Ann. Meyer and his gang are captured and Ann renews her vow of love to Bruce.

Dir: Charles Horan

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

Howard Sherbrooke, a wealthy senior at a law university, is infatuated with Ethel Stratton, a girl who is a favorite with the students. Dick Leslie, his chum, is also in love with her. Dick is from the west, working his way through college, and Howard has assisted him financially. Howard does not know of Dick's love for Ethel. After graduation, Howard, whose interest in Ethel has ripened into love, realizes that his family and social friends will not tolerate her as his wife. He plans a mock marriage, intending to take her to New York with him. He tells Dick of this proposed arrangement, and asks him to get someone to impersonate a minister for the ceremony. Dick veils his indignation, but agrees to carry out the plan. Instead, he engages a real minister, who marries Ethel and Howard. Dick goes west. The couple live happily in a Brooklyn flat for several months when Howard receives a letter from his father, stating that he is planning for his son to marry Beatrice Ford, daughter of his friend, Randolph Ford, a multi-millionaire. He adds that Mr. Ford intends making Howard head of the law department in his firm. Howard realizes he must break off his affair with Ethel. He tells her that he is not married to her, and that he must leave to marry a girl of his own caste. Broken hearted, Ethel informs him she is soon to become a mother. Howard blames the mock marriage on Dick, and leaves. Ethel writes a scathing letter to Dick. Dick hurries east and finds the minister who performed the ceremony. It is the morning of the Sherbrooke-Ford wedding. Ethel goes to the church, and as she starts to denounce her husband during the ceremony, falls in a swoon and is carried into the vestry. Dick and the minister arrive at the church, but the guests are leaving. Ethel comes out of the church alone and meets Dick, who tells her she is really married to Howard. Accompanied by the minister they hurry to the Ford home, where they convince Mr. Ford his son is a bigamist. Mr. Ford, in a rage, declares he will send his son to prison. Horrified at the prospect of a prison term and the attending disgrace, Howard goes into the library where a flash from a pistol shot records his unhappy end. A few months later Ethel and Dick are married.

Dir: Frank Beal

During a raging Montana snowstorm, Doctor Jim Barnes collapses at Esther Anderson's cabin door. Esther offers Jim refuge, but when he discovers that their food supplies are running dangerously low, he braves the journey into town in order to replenish them. On the way, he is overcome with exhaustion and fails to return. Esther, unaware of Jim's condition and abused by her stepfather, joins a theatrical troop and leaves home. Time passes and Jim finally finds Esther, but a vindictive member of her troupe accuses her of having an affair with the manager and Jim believes the accusation. He leaves and Esther goes to New York City where she becomes engaged to a jealous artist, although she still loves Jim. Sam Tuttle, a long time friend, is aware of Esther's continuing love, and so brings Jim to New York City in time to save Esther from an unhappy marriage.

Dir: Edward LeSaint

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

When famous opera singer Elinore Duane undergoes an operation on her throat, she has a series of ether-induced visions. In one, she is transported to ancient Rome where she appears as a much-admired woman in love with Paul, a young heretic, and at odds with Lutor, the high priest. To save her love, she poisons Lutor with her ring. After several other visions which involve variations on this love triangle, Elinore awakens to discover that Lutor is actually her doctor, Sascha Jaccard, and that Paul is the son of a friend who has come to visit the recovering prima donna.

Dir: Harley Knoles

Jim McDonald, the foreman of a shipbuilding plant and head of the labor union, strives to combat the anarchistic propaganda being put forth by Klimoff, the leader of a Bolshevik gang whose goal is to disrupt the country with strikes and anarchy. Despite McDonald's efforts, a strike is called, resulting in chaos. McDonald's child is knocked down by runaway horses abandoned by their striking driver, and dies. Mob scenes take place in America, as well as in Russia. Eventually, the unrest is quelled with an armistice called between Capital and Labor for a year, during which time wages are to be increased to reflect the cost of living, and leaders are to work out a common plan for their mutual advantage. The strikers now realize that they have been pawns of the Bolsheviks and call off the strike, agreeing to the plan.

Dir: Edgar Jones

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

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.

Dir: Charles Horan

Joseph Wilton is a thrifty German and an expert piano maker, who through his industry has built up a small factory and acquired considerable money. His whole life and further ambitions are centered on his son, Bob, whom he has entered in a big university. His only daughter, Molly, has taken the place of her mother in the home, since Mrs. Wilton's death. Bob is carried away by college life, and begins to feel embarrassed over his father's humble life and surroundings. He falls under the influence of Herbert Graham, a suave society leech and college mate, who inveigles him into drinking, gambling and a life of profligacy. Bob is induced to draw on his father for large amounts, on the excuse that he needs the money for expenses at college. The blindness of the father's love for his son is emphasized when he insists on attending a football game, where his son is the hero of the hour. Bob practically denies his father in the presence of his friends on the campus. Soon afterward Bob's continued escapades cause him to be expelled from college. Graham induces Bob to take him home with him, hoping to get an opportunity to swindle his father. They arrive and explain that they have been granted several extra weeks for the Christmas holidays. Graham induces the elder Wilton to finance a small bank for himself and Bob. They are popular and succeed from the start. But Graham indulges in many wild-cat speculations, and the bank is ruined. In a run on the bank both narrowly escape bodily injury, Graham commits suicide. Bob decides to face the disaster, but after hearing Aubrey Maynard, the father of Grace Maynard to whom he is engaged, denounce him in the presence of his own father, he decides to leave, as he has borrowed money from Grace when the bank was first in trouble, and her father threatens him with imprisonment as a swindler. He leaves her a note, saying he will return when he has made a man of himself, and can make good his obligations. Molly, his sister, is in love with George Lennan, and their advice to the elder Wilton to halt Bob in his early profligacy has resulted in the aged piano manufacturer ordering Molly from home. After Bob's departure, Wilton, who has lost his entire fortune in his son's failure, in an effort to make good with his son's creditors, takes up his abode in the slums, eking out an existence by tuning pianos. In a distant city, Bob starts life over and steadily rises to a position of trust and importance. He is promoted to be general manager of the New York office of the big concern in which he has made his success. Upon his return to New York, his sister Molly, who has married Lennan, has started to search for her father. She succeeds in locating him the very day that Bob returns. There is a happy reunion, including Bob's fiancée and a little four-year-old grandson, the child of Molly, whom the older Wilton sees for the first time.

Dir: Maurice Elvey

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

A lady marries a horse trainer but withholds herself until her crippled brother is cured.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

Confidence artist Flossie Golden attempts to fleece foolish but wealthy James Venable with a breach-of-promise suit. Venable's shrewd attorney, Richard Harding, outwits Flossie by proposing that she marry Venable and live on an allowance of $3,000 per year. Flossie is determined to get even with Harding for ruining her plans. In an attempt to con him, she poses as Innocence Page, but falls in love and marries him instead. Larry, Flossie's former accomplice, endeavors to blackmail her with her errant past, but Harding is already cognizant of the facts and Larry fails.

Dir: Charles Horan

When Tom Drogan drunken, wild ways, cause his mother's death, his sister Nell swears to protect and reform him. On the pretext of paying back a gambling debt, Tom brings "Kid" Hogan to the house, but ends up shooting him in the forearm. Dan Hogan, Kid's brother who is a policeman, rushes to the scene and catches Tom running away. To avoid arrest, Tom tells Dan that he fired at Kid for molesting Nell, and in the face of scandal, Dan and Kid back down. As revenge, Kid enlists Mamie, his girlfriend, to force Nell into a compromising situation with a man on a street corner. Conveniently placed, Dan arrests Nell for solicitation, but Frank Roberts, her boyfriend, arrives and extricates her. When Tom hears of the plot, he confronts Kid in a dance hall and soon a raging gun battle breaks out in which Kid is killed. Badly wounded, Tom seeks refuge with Nell, who prepares to protect him with his gun. As the police break down her door, Tom dies.