The Cult Collection Comparable to the Style of My Official Wife: Cu...

Dir: James Young

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: James Young

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

One of the customs in the Breton island of St. Batiste is the lashing of any woman involved in a extra-marital affair. As a result, when Sidonie (Marie Doro) starts an affair with English vacationer Warren Harding (Elliott Dexter), the townsfolk prepare to mete out punishment. To avoid it, Sidonie elopes with Warren, but when she finds him making love to another woman, her first response is conditioned by her upbringing, and she attacks the woman with a whip. Afterward, Sidonie returns alone to St. Batiste, and gets ready to accept her lashing. Just before her public humiliation, however, Warren arrives and refuses to let the whipping take place, after which he pledges to remain faithful to Sidonie.

Dir: James Young

Mountain girl Plutina lives with her grandfather, refuses to marry moonshiner Dan Hodges, preferring instead Zeke, a young farmer. When Zeke learns that Dan, in revenge, shot Plutina's pet trained bear, Zeke vows to kill him. After a revenue officer, shot by Dan, is cared for by Zeke's mother, Dan vows to kill Zeke. Dan and Zeke fight, and although Dan is beaten, he escapes into the mountains. Sometime later, the revenue officer secures for Zeke the position of overseer of government timber lands. As Zeke waits for a train after missing the first one, he learns that Dan, who has threatened to kill Plutina's grandfather and sister and set fire to their house unless Plutina marries him, has abducted her. Zeke arrives at a hidden cave where Dan has taken Plutina just as she is about to jump from a cliff. The ensuing brawl ends when Dan is plunged over the cliff. Finally, Zeke and Plutina marry.

Dir: James Young

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

American surveyor William MacDonald comes to an Ojibway village in the Canadian Northwest. He seduces half-breed girl Annette while her fiancé Baptiste and half-brother Jules Beaubien are away on a trapping expedition. After his work is over, MacDonald spurns Annette and leaves. When she realizes that she is pregnant, Annette wanders delirious into the forest and is devoured by wolves. On returning, Jules persuades Baptiste to let him avenge Annette's death. Jules and Baptiste go to the cabin of Andrew MacTavish, a wretched, self-exiled Scotsman who continually berates his daughter Hilda, whom Jules loves, because her mother left him years earlier. MacDonald arrives and convinces MacTavish that he will take Hilda to his mother in Scotland to educate her, after which they will send for MacTavish. Jules discovers MacDonald's identity when he drunkenly boasts of his previous conquests. Jules fights MacDonald and MacTavish, and escapes with Hilda in a canoe. After MacDonald's pursuing canoe smashes in the rapids, Jules duels with him and kills him.

Dir: James Young

Doris Moore is the daughter of a minister living at a small country town a few hours' distance from New York. She helps her father in his work among his congregation, teaches in the Sunday school and plays the wheezy old organ in the church. The household is thrown into a mild state of excitement on receipt of a letter purporting to come from an organ supply company in New York, but which in reality is from a band of crooks who use this as one of the fraudulent schemes whereby they obtain money from the unwary. The letter offers to supply a beautiful pipe organ on receipt of an installment of one third of the cost, the balance to be paid on time. The matter is laid before the deacons and they decide to consider the offer. The minister writes to the organ company and the chief of the crooks, Harry Leland, a handsome, dashing man of the world, arrives and explains in glowing terms the advantages of the organ. While waiting for the deacons to collect the first installment of two hundred dollars, Leland pays considerable attention to Doris, who is much fascinated by him, representing as he does a totally different type of man to what she has been used to. In the meantime, the crooks in New York have received information from out west that Will Lake, a young eastern college man who in two years has made a fortune of fifty thousand dollars, is returning east, and will stay in New York for a week. They decide to try to blackmail Lake on his arrival and at once communicate with Leland, who replies that he will return immediately as soon as he gets the organ money. Leland has become attracted by the freshness and beauty of Doris and decides to lure her to New York and then make use of her in the crooks' nefarious schemes. He protests violent love for her and proposes marriage, and Doris consents. Immediately after receiving the two hundred dollars from the deacons, he approaches Doris as she leaves Sunday school and with well-simulated despair tells her he has received very bad news and that he is threatened with ruin and begs her to go to New York with him as she alone can save him. After much persuasion, Doris' scruples are overcome and she returns with Leland who takes her to the boarding house run by 'Frisco Kate, a house which is used by the crooks as a meeting place. It is decided to have Doris act as a decoy and to get Lake to visit a flat which has been prepared beforehand. She is therefore told that Lake has defrauded her lover Leland of a considerable sum of money and that if he could be seen, things might be arranged satisfactorily. She is told to speak to Lake, who will be pointed out to her in the hotel, and tell him that her mother who has friends in Goldfield wishes to ask his advice about mining stock. The plan succeeds and Lake unsuspectingly goes to the flat and while alone with Doris, Leland with two other crooks rush in and accuse him of being in a compromising position with Doris whom he calls his wife, much to her amazement, and says that Lake must pay in money to avoid scandal. Lake intuitively feels that Doris is innocent and refuses. A furious fight ensues in which Lake is knocked unconscious, robbed of all his money and locked in the room, the crooks making good their escape with Doris, whom they take to their hiding place. Their plans are defeated, however, by one of their own band, Laylock and 'Frisco Kate, who, hardened crooks though they have been, refused to be parties to the dragging down of an innocent girl. They release Lake and go along with him to the police and lead a raid on the crooks' hiding place who are all captured and receive their just deserts. Doris meets her father at the police station, he having come to New York to trace her. Lake, who is much interested in them, invites them to his hotel to meet his mother and sister. There is a pretty ending to the story when Will Lake, who to celebrate his good fortune and has made the church a present of a beautiful organ, pays a visit to Doris and her father, and a love romance, the seeds of which were set when she innocently acted as a decoy, is happily consummated.

Dir: James Young

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

Ted Vandeveer, a lawyer without clients, receives notice that he has been included in his rich uncle's will, he and his partner, James Sweeney, are excited, then they find that Ted's cousin Archie inherited nearly everything. With the $700 left after paying their creditors, Ted and James go to a fashionable resort, where the hotel clerk mistakenly puts them in the exclusive suite reserved for Archie. Passing for a wealthy man, Ted attracts many eligible girls, among them Mildred Niles, the daughter of a wealthy broker. After Mildred and Ted become engaged, James encourages him to elope before the money runs out. When Mildred's father announces that he lost his fortune in the market, Mildred's mother persuades Mildred to elope before the news is known. Three days into their honeymoon, Mildred and Ted mutually confess their poverty and unable to pay their hotel bill, until Ted learns of a codicil to the will stating that he really inherited a million dollars. It was intentionally kept secret until he married so that no woman would marry him for money.

Dir: James Young

With the electric-ray machine that he invented, a scientist brings his daughter back to life after she dies in a car crash but he fails to revive her soul at the same time.

Dir: James Young

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

During World War I, young Englishman Hawtrey Burke captivates New York society with his charming manner and his skill at polo, but he incurs the scorn of the woman he loves, Elinor Warden, who, having recently returned from war-torn Belgium, cannot understand why Hawtrey is not on the front lines. When shipping agent Joseph Fuhrman is murdered, Elinor's brother Dudley, who is on furlough from France, is tried for the crime based on the accusation of Eric Werner, who covets Elinor. During the trial, the lights are extinguished and Dudley is shot. Hawtrey is arrested but later released on a technicality. Later, when the British Commission sails to the United States, Hawtrey sends a wireless message to the steamer warning of a nearby U-boat, and upon the Commission's safe arrival in New York, he is revealed as a British Secret Service agent. Werner is arrested as the German spy who shot Dudley, who had been working for Hawtrey, whereupon a penitent Elinor confesses her love for the Englishman.

Dir: James Young

John Maddox, a man who has little use for women, travels out West to make his fortune. On the way he rescues a pretty young woman from a narrow ledge just below a steep cliff. She turns out to be Beatrice Clive, an English girl vacationing at the family estate with her wealthy father, Lord Bulverton. Six years pass and, now a wealthy rancher, Maddox discovers that the Bulverton estate is for sale. Finding himself still attracted to Beatrice, he contacts her about buying the estate, but finds that the Bulverton family is in such dire financial straits that Beatrice has been forced to become engaged to the wealthy but villainous Sir George Trenery.

Dir: James Young

After his wife's death, Thomas Singleton suffers a temporary breakdown and is committed to an asylum by his scheming half brother, Jordon Morse. Although Jordon has been appointed the guardian of Thomas' little daughter Virginia, he shuns the responsibility, placing the girl in the care of an old mammy and planning to retrieve her only on her eighteenth birthday, when she comes into possession of her mother's fortune. Sixteen years pass. Thomas, deeply worried about his daughter's well-being, escapes the asylum, and after sending Virginia to live with a poor but kindly cobbler named Lafe Grandoken, he dies. Virginia's chance meeting with millionaire Theodore King leads to romance, and her happiness is complete until Morse, anxious to secure her money, hires Maudlin Bates to kill Theodore. When Bates, plotting to double-cross Morse, threatens Lafe, Morse enters and shoots the gunman, but Lafe is accused. Morse imprisons Virginia, but she escapes in time to free Lafe and bring the villain to justice.