The Definitive Watchlist For Devotees of Sham: Cult Guide

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Osgood and Short are promoters floating stock in a fraudulent tropical rubber plantation among the residents of a New England community. Their best prospect is Elizabeth Mann, a wealthy widow, who is kept from investing only by the influence of her rather effeminate son. To get him out of the way the promoters offer to send him to the tropics to manage the plantation. David, having been brought to a realization of his worthlessness through a curt refusal of marriage, accepts, and is soon landed in the tropics. He meets Senora Morales, a Mexican slave dealer and her daughter, Consuela. They are just departing to deliver a number of slaves to Ludwig Hertzer, the most feared and hated planter on the Isthmus. David gets an insight into Hertzer's peculiar character, and the horror and brutality of the rubber slavery system. Next morning Senora Morales and Consuela arrive with the slaves, among them a big Yaqui chief, to whom Hertzer's half-breed daughter is attracted. Going on to his own plantation, David finds that it is little more than a rubbish heap and sends a cable to his mother not to invest, but this is intercepted by Hertzer for his personal gain. David's housekeeper, Andrea, is a wild, sensuous daughter of the tropics, and endeavors to appropriate David to herself. David turns his attention to reforming conditions and building up the plantation, especially after he hears that his mother has invested in the company. Crazed by the unspeakable brutality to which they are subjected on Hertzer's plantation, the Yaqui chief and his sister escape. In the flight the sister is killed by Hertzer and the following morning the Yaqui is captured, taken back and terribly flogged. Andrea's fight to win David reaches a climax when, after he had ridden by a stream and had seen her bathing, he yields to the lure of her dancing and love-making that night. They are interrupted by cries of yellow fever and, as David goes to attend the sick man, the slaves and Andrea, after looting the hut, follow them. After writing a letter to Morales for more slaves, David is himself stricken with the fever. Morales being away from home, Consuela brings the slaves. Hertzer accompanies her and nurses him back to life. While nursing the sick man, Hertzer schemes to have David removed by Osgood and Short so that he may manage the plantation and divide the spoils with the promoters. Consuela assists David in his reforms by opening a school for slave children. David asks her to marry him. She agrees, providing his mother consents. At that moment Hertzer brings a letter authorizing him to take charge of the plantation, and, as David speeds back to New England to gain his rights, Consuela stays on to try to protect his interests. Hertzer urges Consuela to marry him. In answer to her query as to why he has been so brutal, he explains that because years ago native bandits killed his wife and stole his baby, and this had so warped him that he thought only of revenge. In New England David secures control of the plantation, while his mother writes to Consuela urging her marriage with David. Patricia obtains the letter and shows it to Hertzer, who is so enraged that he locks her up in a hut and, after a night of drinking, starts to wreak his vengeance on her. Drunk, he wanders into the jungle, where he falls unconscious. Returning home, Morales finds that Consuela is at Hertzer's, and starts out for her, with David, who has just returned. Morales is killed. That evening Hertzer goes to the hut and attacks Consuela. She is saved by the arrival of her slave. Patricia pleads with Hertzer to give up his plan, but Hertzer locks her up in another hut and goes back to Consuela. He now plans to mate her with a slave. The slave is brought in, but Consuela is again saved by an uprising of the slaves. A battle ensues between them and Hertzer and the overseers. Hertzer is left helpless on the ground by the Yaqui chief, who, to avenge himself for the death of his sister, carries off Hertzer's half-breed daughter, Patricia. The slaves burn the plantation and Hertzer, a physical wreck, plans his worst revenge. If he cannot have Consuela he determines that no one else shall, and crawling to the hut, he sets fire to it, to burn both of them. David, nearing the plantation, sees the flames and rescues Consuela. Carrying her out, he adds mental anguish to Hertzer's death by telling him that Consuela is his own daughter. He revives Consuela and all ends happily.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Magazine writer J. Hamilton Vance travels to the mountains of Kentucky to get local color for his stories, and falls in love with Roxie Bradley, the daughter of a moonshiner. Regarded at first with suspicion by the mountaineers, Vance finally wins their confidence and is appointed teacher in the little log school house. The former teacher, resentful at the intrusion, attempts to shoot Vance through the schoolhouse window, but Roxie intercepts the bullet. Vance nurses her back to health, engendering the jealousy of Lily Bud Raines, who starts a rumor that Vance is a federal agent spying on the moonshiners. As the mountaineers plot to extract vengeance on Vance, Roxie and he are married, and when his antagonists discover that Vance is now one of them, they accept him as part of the mountain community.

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

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Rudolph Schlitz, a cobbler, finds a lottery ticket in a shoe he is repairing and, determined to make some money from it, he sells an interest in the ticket to his friend, Adolph Busch. Then, fed up with the way temperance leader Caroline Pickett rails against the evils of alcohol, Bobbie Bennett spikes the cider at Caroline's picnic. All of the villagers in attendance get drunk, including Rudolph and Adolph, who then dream that they have arrived in Washington to claim their lottery winnings. Besides being transported to the nation's capital, however, they also have been transported through time back to the Civil War and barely escape from the fighting alive. Rudolph and Adolph then wake up from their shared nightmare, and remembering the link between gambling and Gettysburg, they swear off lotteries and other games of chance forever.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Although Tom Hartwell is the town drunk of Matherville, his son Bill, a blacksmith, loves him and batters down the jail door when the old man is arrested. In an effort to drive them both out of the village, the narrow-minded townspeople attack Bill, but the Rev. David Lane defends him and then invites him to dinner. Bill falls in love with the reverend's daughter, Mary Lane, but she becomes infatuated with Edward Jones and marries him. Edward robs Mary and flees to Chico, Arizona, and when Mary follows him, she learns that he has a wife there. Following his father's death, Bill travels to Chico, where he and Mary become entangled in several adventures. Finally Bill is accused of stealing a horse, and after Mary rescues him just as he is about to be hanged, the two return to Matherville as man and wife.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Peck o' Pickles perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Frank Perry's wife Helen is away visiting her mother, and he uses this "free time" for a night of drinking at a nightclub. Unfortunately, when he tries to return home, he enters the wrong house and is nearly arrested When Helen comes back he tells her that the "incident" was actually an initiation rite of the Masons, knowing that his wife has always wanted him to join the group. She excitedly tells her father about Frank's becoming a Mason, since her father is also a Mason. What neither she nor Frank know is that her father has actually been doing the same thing Frank is--pretending to be a Mason when he actually isn't. Complications ensue.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

A young man gets arrested after a drunken night. Sentenced to 30 days in jail, he tells his wife he has to go to Mexico for a month.

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

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

American heiress Kate Shipley crosses the Atlantic to attend the wedding of her little cousin Julie in France, little knowing what Fate holds in store when she leaves her Fifth Avenue home for the Foublanques' chateau. Julie marries the profligate Comte de Crebillon, though she loves her cousin Henri, and Kate grieves to see her little cousin grow sadder and paler every day through the realization of her grave mistake. A great happiness, however, comes to the American girl, for she is loved by Capt. John Gregory, a dashing British officer, no less noble than he is brave and handsome, to whom she is soon betrothed. The Comte de Crebillon conceals a secret in his past, a broken and beautiful woman, who suddenly appears one night at the chateau and confronts him, after which she is never seen alive again. Old Dr. Girodet, the family physician, dislikes the Comte. Hearing a woman's scream on the fatal night, and being told of a mysterious, haggard face that had peered through the window of the chateau, he notices the Comte's nervousness and fear, and begins investigations which end in the finding of the woman's body in the old wishing-well in the garden of the estate. Suicide is the verdict given in the woman's death, and the Comte breathes freely for a time. He is harsh, suspicious and cruel to his girl-wife, and poor little Julie, driven desperate by his treatment and her love for Henri, decides to leave France with her sweetheart cousin. Julie writes Kate she is eloping, and the impulsive and generous American girl goes to Henri's room to save Julie from her folly. There she is discovered by the Comte and her own betrothed, Capt. Gregory. To shield her cousin from the Comte's fury, Kate conceals Julie's presence in Henri's room, and takes the awful situation upon her own shoulders, at the risk of her good name and her fiancé's faith and love. The development of the play thrillingly portrays a series of dramatic situations that culminate in the triumph of Kate over the insulting Comte, and the revelation of his mysterious and sinful past, which sets Julie free to marry Henri. Kate is made doubly happy by her gallant captain's faith through all her trying experiences, and "one of our girls'' at last weds one of England's bravest officers.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Tony comes to America virtually the slave of his padrone, who holds him in debt for his passage money. But Rosa Picciano marries him to escape parental discipline and Tony hopes for freedom at last, but Rosa makes it plain that she does not love him. When the bambina comes, he lavishes all his love on little Giulia and is heartbroken when Rosa divorces him on a trumped-up charge and gains possession of the child. But Tony wins her back from her heartless mother and has her to thank that his hands are not stained with blood.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Are You a Mason? perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

Garry Garrity, an Irish blacksmith, receives word from America that he has fallen heir to his uncle's millions. Arriving in Chicago to take charge of his estate, Garry's awkward ways incur the enmity of his cousin and ward, Louise Evans, but after Louise sees through the rough surface to Garry's sterling qualities, the two fall in love. This disturbs Count Caminetti, who had designs on both Louise and the fortune. The count schemes with Mrs. Hawtry, who has visions of becoming a wealthy countess, to frame Garry in a compromising situation, thus forcing him to marry Mrs. Hawtry, who would then divorce him and sue for alimony. When Louise hears the scandalous rumors generated by the count, she insists that Garry marry Mrs. Hawtry until an innkeeper admits that it has been a frame-up. Garry rushes to confront the count and as he is choking a confession from him, Louise enters. After overhearing everything, Louise begs Garry's forgiveness.

Dir: Thomas N. Heffron

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.