Visionary Picks Drawn from the Same DNA as Polly with a Past: Cult Guide

Dir: Leander De Cordova

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Love, Honor and Obey perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter Faith must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that neither likes, and Faith is in love with and eager to marry her childhood sweetheart, John Temple. Faith sets out to investigate what hold Langhorne might have on her father. The search takes her to an island during a fierce sea-storm on a dark and windy night; the sentinel light in the lighthouse suddenly goes out and the family yacht is about to crash upon the great rocks of the island.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

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

In Africa an explorer is the reincarnated lover of the 2,000-year-old White Queen.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Polly with a Past perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A young author of a book containing radical sexual theories Stuart Emmett, is injured when his automobile lunges out of control. He is found by Conscience Williams who takes him to her home, but when her father, a narrow-minded New Englander, reads selections from Stuart's book, he orders the young man out of his house. The couple, who have fallen in love, attempt to communicate through letters, but these are intercepted by Eben Tollman, a wealthy man with an interest in Conscience. When Conscience reads a newspaper story falsely accusing Stuart of scandal, she agrees to marry Tollman. On the eve of the marriage, Marion Holby, the woman linked to Stuart in the slander, comes to Conscience and clears him. The next morning, Conscience discovers her husband drunk and in his hands, the letters that he had intercepted. A scene ensues, and she telephones Stuart for help. During a fight between the two men, Tollman falls into a pool and drowns, freeing Conscience to pursue her true love.

Dir: Leander De Cordova

A professor aims to prove the Darwinian theory correct with a wild beast brought up in the jungles. The creature, named Darwa, is taken to civilization where society accepts her as a woman and a young aristocrat falls in love with her. As the creature is not a woman, but rather the result of experimentation and only half human, the professor declares the project a success. But will it hold up to the final test when Darwa is pitted against a wild ape?