Masterpiece Selection Resonating with the Themes of Silk Stocking S...

Dir: Edward LeSaint

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: Tod Browning

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

Princess Marya and her brother, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, are studying in the U.S. when word reaches them that Rasputin is to be killed. Paul is seized by Russian secret service men, but through Marya's appeal to Captain Rodney Willard, he is released. In Russia, Marya participates actively in the Revolution, while Willard, with whom she has fallen in love, joins the Allied Commission. Deeply troubled by the influence of German agents in Russia, Marya organizes the Legion of Death, a fighting unit of peasant women, and leads them into battle against the Germans. The legion suffers defeat and Marya is captured, but in the end, she wins her freedom.

Dir: Tod Browning

Roma Wycliffe, a high-spirited girl bored with the lavender-and-old-lace atmosphere of her Aunt Henrietta's estate, discovers that her grandmother was a gypsy and decides to become one herself. Wearing gypsy clothing, she runs away to New York, where she is arrested on the suspicion that she is Gypsy Nan, a thief. Mrs. Roberts, whose poodle had attracted Roma's attention, intercedes for the girl and, promising to care for her, takes her to her lavish home. Young John Roberts falls in love with Roma, but the "gypsy" imagines him too stodgy. To win her love, John declares himself the leader of a band of gypsy thieves and then hires a gang of ruffians to prove his claim. When the thugs actually rob a bank, John has them arrested, and Roma, realizing the darker side of gypsy life, marries John.

Dir: Tod Browning

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

Easterner Alva Leigh arrives in the mining town of Magnet just after her fiancé, Donald Jaffray, has been murdered. Because Alva has sworn vengeance, "Sudden" Duncan, the real murderer, accuses Donald's partner, Dick Randall, of the crime. Knowing that Dick is planning a journey across the desert, Duncan fills his canteen with poison, but Alva, who also is determined to kill Dick, drills a hole in the canteen so that the water will drain out. After Dick's departure, Alva learns from "Tiger Lil'," who is jealous of Duncan's attention to the Eastern newcomer, that it was Duncan who killed Donald. Frantic, Alva immediately mounts a horse and rides into the desert to save the man she now recognizes as her true love. Tiger Lil' shoots Duncan in a dance hall quarrel, and Alva marries Dick.

Dir: Tod Browning

Carma Carmichael, who lives with her uncle Quincy, is kidnapped by her renegade father Roger and taken to his ancestral Southern home. Uncle Quincy sends young Jack Carrington to investigate and goes into hiding, leading the Carmichaels to believe he is dead. Carma is at first suspicious of Jack's intentions but soon learns that the man who abducted her is actually an impostor who murdered her father and now lives in the plantation with a group of thugs. Despite "Roger's" attempts to take Jack's life, the young man incites the thugs against him and they attack the house. Uncle Quincy arrives with a posse, and after their rescue, Carma and Jack embrace.

Dir: Tod Browning

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

Powerfully built Greek Philip, falls in love with Toinette, a French girl whom he meets when she is injured in an auto accident. She is hospitalized, operated upon and then recovers, but a hospital attendant misinforms Philip that Toinette has died. The Greek, keeping a pledge to his love, continues to sing beneath her hospital room window every night at midnight. Meanwhile, a gang has been terrorizing a park near the hospital, and one night during a confrontation with the police, the leader is stabbed and he is taken to the same doctor who had arranged for Toinette to enter the hospital. While at the hospital, the leader recognizes Philip as the person who slipped him a pack of cigarettes when he was earlier hospitalized, during Toinette's stay. The gangster informs Philip that his love is alive and well. The Greek rushes to Toinette, who had been told that Philip had returned to Greece, and the lovers are reunited.

Dir: Tod Browning

Master thief Blue Jean Billie, the unknown perpetrator of many sensational jewel heists, robs the guests at the exclusive party marking the engagement of Muriel Vanderflip to Algernon P. Smythe, Lord Chesterton. Overpowering Detective Wood, specially stationed there to stop her, Muriel escapes with her chauffeur, Shaver Michael. After Shaver's car overturns, Billie surprises her pursuers, and at gunpoint, makes them return, but Smythe, hiding on the side of Shaver's car, accompanies them until Billie discovers him and makes him take them to his home, where she holds him prisoner. To Shaver's dismay, Billie and Smythe fall in love. After they escape a police raid, Smythe convinces Billie to send the jewels back and marry him. Although she has her doubts when she learns that Smythe is really the international crook "English Harry," after he fights Shaver and locks him and Wood in their retreat with the stolen jewels, Billie and Harry make their final escape vowing to go straight.

Dir: Tod Browning

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

Doris Standish's father insists upon her marriage to aging millionaire Cyrus W. Hopkins, but just before the wedding, the young woman runs from the house and leaps into a parked car, ordering the chauffeur to drive her quickly away. The driver is Jimmy Nevin, who, because Hopkins financially ruined his father, has agreed to help a gang of crooks in their plot to steal the bride's jewels and wedding presents. Realizing that Doris is not Mary Butler, his accomplice, Jimmy offers to accompany her home, but when she refuses to return, he takes her to the thieves' hideout. Mary and her henchmen try to rob Doris, but she escapes and notifies the police. Doris, her father and Hopkins return to the hideout just before the police arrive to arrest all of the thieves but Jimmy, who has grown extremely fond of the runaway bride.

Dir: Tod Browning

Railroad president John Houston, along with his daughter Marjorie and his fiancee, Elinor Craig, are aboard the express train when it is held up by a gang of outlaws. Outlaw Dan Tracy is attracted to Marjorie, who, filled with dreams of romance, returns his interest. They exchange rings and later meet secretly in the city. When Houston learns that his daughter's new suitor is an outlaw, he hires a detective to investigate. The investigation indicates that Tracy is Houston's son by a former marriage, and Houston, mortified, allows the outlaw to escape. Tracy then persuades Marjorie to elope with him and takes her to his shack in the hills where she is rudely awakened to the realities of outlaw life. Houston arrives to save his daughter, and after Tracy is killed by Rosanne, the woman he betrayed, it is revealed that Tracy was not his son but an offspring of his former wife and an outlaw.

Dir: Alexander Butler

In Alberta, Canada, a Cornish emigrant unmasks a rustler posing as the girl's "blind" father.