Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of Summer Bachelors: Cult Guide

Dir: Allan Dwan

After the death of her father, Betty Lockwood goes to Graystone Gables, the estate where he had been the caretaker, to spend some time alone there. She meets David Chandler, Graystone's owner, who is attracted to her and tells her to come back whenever she wants to. Betty's mother soon remarries, but her new stepfather is not the same kind of man that her father was; she finds herself the subject of some vicious gossip begun by her mother's new husband when he spots her at the estate with David. Complications ensue.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

When Colonel Archer, the military post commanding officer, refuses to loan money to his second-in-command, Captain Waring, Waring gets the money from Brent Lindsay of the nearby mining town, in exchange for his note. Both Waring and Lindsay court Floyd Bingham, the daughter of a retired colonel, but Floyd learns that Lindsay is involved with Queen, a dance hall girl. Following the urging of her father, Floyd marries Archer, who has two children left to him by his dying sister, whom Floyd loves. When Lindsay continues his attentions to Floyd, Archer quarrels with her and leaves to go hunting. Floyd goes walking in the woods with Lindsay and his kiss is photographed by Waring, who attempts to blackmail Lindsay. When Lindsay is found dead and Archer, who suspects Floyd, is arrested, the men from the mining town almost lynch Archer, but Queen, who witnessed the murder, clears him.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Dorothy Raleigh is a high-spirited Southern beauty who has been brought up by her father, Col. Raleigh, an unreconstructed Kentuckian, to have nothing to do with the townspeople of the little village of Norwalk, just outside of Louisville. She has no other companions than the old negro servants, her animal pets and her books. One day there comes into her life by chance a young millionaire gambler named Forbes Stewart. He makes love to her and asks the Colonel for her hand. Indignant at his presumption, the Colonel orders him from the house. But the young people elope. When Dorothy meets her husband's friends she is grievously disappointed. He determines, rather than cause her unhappiness. to change his mode of living, and give up his old friends. But a detective who knows something of his past, tries to blackmail him. His defiance leads to his arrest, and he is sentenced to a year in the penitentiary. Dorothy is loyal to him at first but when another woman enters her home and seemingly proves that she is Stewart's wife by an earlier marriage, she goes back to her father. The stern old man, however, has disowned her, and she is compelled to seek shelter in a cabin with her old negro mammy. When Stewart is released from the penitentiary he hastens to his home to find his wife. Instead he finds this other woman, an old flame who has taken this method to win him back again. He repudiates her, however, and hurries to Norwalk to see the Colonel and demand Dorothy. The Colonel refuses to tell her whereabouts, but from an old servant Stewart learns the truth. Dorothy in the meantime has been led to believe her baby illegitimate, and the villagers, glad to see the proud name of the Raleighs dragged in the dust, make her life miserable. She is about to kill herself when Stewart arrives. The outcome reunite the lovers and brings a change in the heart of the father that is supremely satisfying.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

Pepita, a radiant and merry Spanish beauty, and her playful brother Jose, witness their mother, whose faded beauty led her husband to abandon her for another, plunge a dagger into her breast. After their uncle avenges the death, Pepita develops a fierce hatred of men and pledges never to marry, while Jose leaves for Madrid with a benevolent padre. Sebastiano, Spain's most famous toreador, arrives in town and, after seeing Pepita, spurns the pretty Sarita, who dies hopelessly infatuated. Later, Pepita visits Jose in Madrid and encounters Sebastiano. She resists his attempts at conquest and haughtily makes him serve her. Finally, when Pepita responds to Sebastiano's protestations of love with vehement hatred, he leaves for Lisbon. His departure awakens Pepita's love, and when he returns with a fiancee, Pepita suffers intense jealousy. During a bullfight, Sebastiano glances at Pepita and is gored by the bull. As he is about to die, Pepita, ready to die with him, declares her love, and Sebastiano revives.

Dir: Allan Dwan

A girl with old-fashioned values becomes a modern sophisticate.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

The story of David Harum, a small-town banker, and how what he does and who he is affects the lives of everyone in his town, whether they--or he--realize it.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Neighboring ranchers John Ashby and Allene Houston are in love, but their fathers' violent feud over the route of the new X. Y. Z. Railroad eventually drives them apart. Colonel Houston and the elder Ashby are both killed in a fight, leaving John and Allene to continue the feud, John accepting a position with the railroad company and Allene swearing that it will never cross her property. Allene is aided in her battle by the foreman of the Houston ranch, Harry Marshall, an ambitious man who hopes to make Allene his wife. After an intense struggle, one of Allene's men shoots John, but even as she is winning the fight, Allene realizes that she still loves John. In the end, Allene herself lays the last tie just in time to save the company's franchise rights.

Dir: Allan Dwan

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

Sunny Wiggins is regarded as worthless by the other members of his family, who have risen to the social station where they are snubbed by the best people. The morning of the day the play begins his sister is preparing to entertain a party of butterflies, among whom is the mentally lacking beanpole she intends to marry. Sunny is in bed with as queer a lot of associates as could be collected. He has recruited his following from the bread line; two of them are in bed with him while the others are sleeping on the carpet, and one has even gone to rest in the bathtub. Not too willingly do all hands go to the shower, but it is a wash or no breakfast. Downstairs goes the motley array and into the dining room. Sunny thinks it fine that such a spread has been prepared for his guests and there is little left when sister enters with her guests. Of course, Sis at once tells father and Sunny is called to book. Dismissing his own guests, he finds that he has only one friend in the place, one of his sister's guests, and he doesn't know her name. She thinks Sunny is splendid and when his father has sent him out to try his sociological theories along the Bowery, she wishes him luck. There in a cheap lodging house Sunny teaches the derelicts to laugh, and with such success that an eminent specialist drafts him to cure a millionaire grouch of dyspepsia. In the rich home of the dyspeptic he finds that the girl is the millionaire's daughter. She enters heartily into his plans but an aged 'cellist, whose favorite music is Chopin's "Funeral March," exerts more influence in the household than he. But when father has discovered his daughter and the supposed physician in fond embrace there is a fight, which ends with father a prisoner in his room, to be cured by starvation. Meanwhile a broker, whose offer of marriage has been refused by the daughter, is plotting to ruin her father in Wall Street. How Sunny thwarts the attempt, cures the grouch, becomes his son-in-law and partner and thereby is reinstated in the good graces of his own family, is the story this comedy tells.

Dir: Allan Dwan

A wealthy girl's banished mother returns as the seamstress at her daughter's wedding.

Dir: Allan Dwan

Steve O'Dare, a rich young man who has lived on his Nevada ranch for some years, returns to New York for a visit. He goes to the University Club, of which he is a member, for a week of New York gaiety with his club companions, but fails to get thrills out of the pleasures of the Great White Way. While lunching at a country club, he tells the boys that there isn't a thrill in Manhattan. And then, through an open doorway he sees at a table in the garden outside a middle-aged couple of distinguished appearance--and a beautiful girl. Upon inquiring of his companions who the people are, he learns that they are the Count and Countess Marinoff and their ward. One of his pals offers to bet him $5,000 that if he will stay in New York a week he will get the thrill of his life. Steve takes the bet. Remembering that he has sold stock to Count Marinoff he wonders whether it might not be possible for him to meet the ward. The problem is solved when the Count calls Steve up and asks him to come to his home. Steve goes and meets the ward, who mystifies Steve by making mysterious signs to him. The Count informs Steve that the girl is crazy. The girl's maid passes Steve a note that says the girl is in great peril and wants him to help her. The Count being called away, the maid directs Steve to go up to the second floor. Ascending the stairs he drops through a trap door on the landing and is bound and gagged by the Count's butler, but the maid releases him, and he telephones to the boys at the club and asks some of them to come out to the Count's house. The boys come, and a battle follows between the Count and his servants on one side, Steve and the clubmen on the other. Steve battles up through the house to the roof with one of the Count's henchmen, who has carried the ward off in his arms early in the conflict. After finally knocking the villain cold Steve searches for the girl but cannot find her. All the men who have been fighting, both his friends and the Count have mysteriously disappeared. As he is at his wits end he sees the face of the butler peeping through a sliding panel in the wall. The panel quickly closes and Steve kicks his way through it and finds himself in a banquet hall where the whole company of his friends and supposed foes are dining together, the persecuted ward beaming at him from the end of the table. The friend with whom Steve made the bet now explains that he has been given the promised thrill, the members of the party, except the clubmen, being members of the theatrical profession, especially engaged for the doings. Just then there arrives four of Steve's cowboys, for whom he telephoned at the same time that he telephoned the club. With their aid Steve quickly turns the tables on the jokers. While cowboys cover the party with their guns Steve announces that he, like Lochinvar, came out of the West, grabs the girl, and rides away with her. She is a not-unwilling captive, and as hour later the weary party still held under the guns get a wireless from Steve that he is quite willing to pay his bet; he has had the thrill of his life, for he is married and sailing away on his wedding tour.