Curated Recommendations Seeking the Same Brilliance as Mr. Barnes o...

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

When the circus comes to town, the town's orphans are treated to an outing to see the show. The circus troupe's 'Jinx' girl causes so many problems for the performers and performances that, to escape punishment, she must run away. She mingles with the orphans and runs away to join an orphanage.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

During the May Day celebration at Ferryville, Millie Martin, whose stingy father will not buy her proper clothes, watches as Violet Henry, the daughter of the town's richest man, is pushed into a stagnant pool by the village bolshevik. The story amuses Millie's father, who gives her a dollar, with which she buys beauty cream in preparation for her first railway journey. On the train, Millie meets John Turner, a carpet layer disguised as a doctor. Earlier, John fought a man caught cheating at poker. He took his uncle's railway ticket and doctor's bag when he thought the cheater was killed. After Millie feigns a toothache to get John's attention, her father, to avoid a doctor's bill, gives her chewing tobacco as a remedy. When she swallows it, and John orders an operation, the train stops at a nearby sanitarium. After Millie escapes, and John finds her in a room with a baby, they both explain. John is mistaken for a burglar, and after his uncle arrives to straighten matters out, John and Millie are free to pursue romance.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Ezra Hollins, though a hired man, is ambitious because he loves Ruth Endicott, his employer's daughter. Ruth, not knowing of his love, helps him with his studies, though secretly, because she knows her father would not approve. Ezra passes his entrance examination, but at the last moment gives his tuition money to save the brother of the girl he loves from the results of his speculations from the bank. His failure to go to college is misunderstood, but in the end his name is cleared and Caleb is proud of his chosen son-in-law.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

Traveling saleswoman Mary Marbury thrashes a masher on a train when he tries to kiss a young girl in a tunnel. After the man and his female companion are escorted from the train, Mary encounters them again in New York City, where they attempt to marry the children of her wealthy employer, Jonas Abbott, then pose as cubist art instructors Fernando Poyntier and his sister, Marcia. Jonas worries that his son and Mary's fiancé, Raymond, is leading a frivolous life in the city's Bohemian community. Mary plots to incur the boy's jealousy by posing as an adventuress leading Jonas astray. When the Poyntiers suspect that the Abbott fortune could go to Mary instead of to them, they rob Jonas's safe and hide the money on his yacht, on which they plan to escape. Exhausted from dancing the fox-trot, Mary and Abbott rest on the yacht, and she discovers the money. When the crooks are captured, Raymond, realizing his love for Mary, proposes.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Sheriff's son Royal Beaudry is thought a coward, even by the young woman he has his heart set on. But he disproves cowardice when he rescues his father's friend from kidnappers.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

Shy Joel Parker seems bound for nowhere, until Abbie Nettleton enters his life. With her prodding, Joel goes from timid nobody to a baseball star with bravura.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

An American munitions manufacturer and his son become ensnarled with enemy agents from Germany during the First World War.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

James Ashe sends his son James Jr. off to manage a family-owned logging mill. While attending to his duties, James Jr. falls in love with a beautiful girl.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A young woman works in the scullery of a grand hotel, and dreams of a life among its fashionable patrons.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Farmer Toby Watkinsm whose fanciful poetry does not impress his exasperated uncle, leaves the farm to become a subscription solicitor for the "Sawbert Weekly Clarion." In Sawbert, Toby meets Mayor Lot Morris' daughter Jean, and the shy young people fall in love. Crooked stock promoter Kendall Reeves arrives in town and unveils his plan to open a string-bean cannery. While the venture receives the mayor's support, "Clarion" editor Zachary Bartrum, Morris' political enemy, suspects Reeves and decides to block the scheme. On the night Reeves presents his plan to the citizens, Bartrum falls ill and asks Toby to deliver his opposing speech, but seeing Jean in the audience, he loses his courage and dashes from the hall. The next day, Toby overhears Joe Farley, Reeves' former partner, demanding a share of the profits. Farley learns of this and warns Reeves, who goes to the mayor's home and, gun in hand, demands $5,000. Toby arrives and defeats the crook in a fight, after which the grateful mayor becomes reconciled to Bartrum and bestows his blessing on his daughter's romance with Toby.