Visionary Picks In Alignment with the style of The Blackbird: Cult ...

Dir: Tod Browning

Gudrun works in the American wheat country as a hired girl to Mrs. Hawes. Charley Holt, the son of a rich family, takes the Swedish girl to a dance where she is snubbed by his mother and sister. Furious by his elitist relatives, Charley marries Gudrun and gets a menial job as a mill worker. A child is born, but Gudrun's life is unhappy because Charley becomes an alcoholic. After five years of marriage Charley dies in a saloon fight. Gudrun then buys a small farm and works the wheat fields. When tramp Martin O'Neill comes to the farm, Mary feeds him and he works for her. Martin later saves Gudrun and her child from a burning barn but is suspected of starting the fire himself and narrowly escapes a lynching. Finally, it is disclosed that the fire was actually started by Heine, a jealous rival, and Gudrun and Martin are married.

Dir: Tod Browning

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of A Love Sublime 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

Henri Labordie's wife dies after giving birth to twin children, Jacques and Jeanne. Before he takes the children to the Canadian woods to live he makes an agreement with his friend Duval Hebert that when Jeanne is old enough she shall marry Hebert's son Louis. In their new home Labordie lavishes all his affection on Jacques, a weak and sickly youth. Francois, a half-breed, worships Jeanne as she grows up to winsome womanhood. Donald Duncan, a government surveyor, meets Jeanne. He becomes infatuated with her, and she with him. Jacques tells his father, now totally blind, and Labordie forbids Jeanne to see Duncan. Love finds a way, however, and Jeanne promises to wed Duncan when he has completed his work for the government. Jacques, who has injured his hand, persuades Jeanne to take him canoeing in the St. Lawrence. Francois sees the canoe upset. He saves Jeanne, but her brother is drowned. Jeanne has been warned that any great shock would kill her father, and so the girl cuts off her hair and tells her father that Jeanne is dead and that she is Jacques. When Duncan returns for his bride he is told of the death of Jeanne. On his deathbed Labordie asks Jeanne, whom he believes is Jacques, to go to Montreal to Duval Hebert, and resuming her own dress and name she does so. Hebert tells Jeanne that it was her father's wish that she marry his son Louis, a dissipated youth. She is horror-stricken, but to keep her father's vow consents that the marriage be celebrated after Louis' returns from the North where he has gone to settle a question concerning his father's land. In the north woods Louis meets Duncan, who is working for the Hebert firm, and when the young man quarrels with a guide, Duncan saves his life. Young Hebert insists that the surveyor return to Montreal and receive the thanks of his father and fiancée. Duncan accepts the invitation and he and Jeanne meet again. At first he believes that Jeanne tricked him, but when he has learned the truth, Duncan takes the unhappy girl in his arms and tells her again of his love. Louis, half intoxicated, sees them and insults Jeanne. Francois resents the affront to his idol, and throws Louis out of the room. Louis tries to get at the half-breed, but falls over the banisters and is killed. Not knowing this, Duncan goes away, fearing to cause Jeanne trouble. Months later, once again in the north woods, Francois is surprised to see Duncan riding toward him. The young surveyor asks whether Louis and Jeanne are happy in their marriage. By remaining silent, Francois might keep Jeanne and Duncan from meeting, and perhaps in time win her for himself. But his love for her is so sincere that he prefers her happiness to his own, and Jeanne and Duncan are reunited in the northern woods where they first met.

Dir: Tod Browning

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

Alisa Graeme travels from Scotland to America to visit Jeremiah Wishart, an old wealthy friend of her grandfather. The invalid Jeremiah is charmed by Alisa and decides she would make a good wife for his favorite nephew David. Without meeting Alisa, David refuses the arrangement and runs away. Later, Alisa also runs away rather than wed another of Jeremiah's nephews and meets a young billboard painter in the country. The two form a partnership, travel the countryside together painting billboards and gradually fall in love. When the painter tells Alisa that he won't marry until his finances are secure, she leaves him in anger and heads for Jeremiah's house. From his wheelchair, Jeremiah sees first his wayward nephew painting a nearby billboard, then a young woman stopping to help him. Jeremiah's initial anger at David mellows when he recognizes the woman as Alisa. Once Alisa and David realize the other's identity, they happily reunite.

Dir: Tod Browning

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

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

Peggy Desmond, the daughter of an Irish magistrate, loves Captain Neil Dacey, but is pursued by Terence O'Malley, the nephew of Squire O'Malley, a wealthy landowner. Although the squire offers to pay off the Desmonds' debts if Peggy were to marry Terence, Peggy refuses. After Neil invokes the name of Rory O'More, the "Will o' the Wisp," a legendary Irish Robin Hood, Peggy dresses up as a highwayman and robs Squire O'Malley, then gives the purse to one of the squire's poor tenants. As the local law officer, Neil is assigned to capture the bandit, but is robbed himself by his clever incognito sweetheart. When the squire turns up dead, Neil, whose gun is found next to the corpse, is arrested and jailed. To free her love, Peggy disguises herself once more as a highwayman and forces Terence to confess to the murder at gunpoint. Once released, Neil deduces that Peggy is the bandit and makes good on her promise to marry the man who succeeded in unmasking the "Will o' of the Wisp."

Dir: Tod Browning

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

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

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

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: Tod Browning

Eleanor Hamlin, a forlorn little orphan living with her grandparents in Cape Cod, is adopted by a wealthy New Yorker, Beulah Page, and her friends. Beulah does not love Eleanor, but her friends -- particularly Peter Bolling, a man she has chosen for herself -- are captivated by the girl. To get Eleanor out of the way, Beulah sends her to an upstate finishing school, but the plan backfires when Eleanor returns a refined and radiant young woman. Realizing that Peter is in love with Eleanor, Beulah tells her that she is engaged to him, and Eleanor sadly returns to her old Cape Cod home. Peter follows her but she eludes him, and although Beulah's deception ultimately is revealed, Eleanor informs her benefactors that she wishes simply to remain their child.