The Auteur's Selection In the Shadow of Smith's Picnic: Cult Guide

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

At the Killjoy Cafe, "everything is first class except the food and the service."

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

Harold and his rival fight over Bebe on her birthday, first at her home and then at a nearby skating rink.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Don't Shove perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

Boy trying to impress girl, gets chased by her father and the police right into an ongoing marathon.

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

Harold appears at the farm looking for work and afraid he will find it. He does, and finally out-wits a pair of burglars who are trying to rob the safe, and as his reward he gets the girl.

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

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

Harold Lloyd plays a troublemaker who messes up with strangers and cops along the way. During the confusion he takes a trolley to escape, falling in love with a female collector who doesn't care much about him and he also annoys the trolley conductor. But it seems that odds and luck will be on his favor.

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

Harold and Snub, camping in the wilds, prove too much for the Indians that take them captive.

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

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.

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

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

A young man goes out to eat breakfast with his friend. As a restaurant "regular" with a pistol threatens to eat everyone's bacon, the two friends flee.

Dir: Alfred J. Goulding

A giant cave man kidnaps beautiful Adorable from the cave clan and the man who rescues her can have her hand and a new suit of clothes.