Essential Cult Cinema Mirroring the Impact of The Bride's Play: Cul...

Dir: George Terwilliger

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Terwilliger

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Terwilliger

Matthew and Reginald Crosby, two brothers, and their cousin, James Thedford, manage an industrial conglomerate. Reginald marries an actress and gives so many lavish and ostentatious parties that one of them leads to a strike after being reported by labor editor Oscar Lackett. The strike leaders are fiery orator Jem Burress, German immigrant Louis Stolbeck, and Stolbeck's feisty daughter Louise, who is also Jem's girlfriend. John Stedman, a labor lawyer, lends moderation to the cause and thus impresses Matthew and Reginald's sister, Grace Crosby, who joins the workers. When Jem, jealous of Louise's infatuation with John, attempts to discredit him with the union members, Louise goes to John's apartment to warn him, but Grace arrives at the same time to accept John's marriage proposal. To prove her devotion to John and the cause, Grace summons her brothers to John's apartment, and when everyone converges, they finally resolve the strike.

Dir: George Terwilliger

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

A jealous leading lady does herself out of money and honor, while the object of her jealousy steps in, carries the show and wins the love of the play's author.

Dir: George Terwilliger

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Terwilliger

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Terwilliger

A rich artist has never completed a master painting because he could not find a model for the face, sees the wife of a man in hard luck begging on the street so she can buy milk for her baby, and the artist secures just what he desired.

Dir: George Terwilliger

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

Factory owner John Gray takes ill during a strike at his factory. His doctor suggests that John's brother David, who looks just like him, take his place at home and at the factory. Although the two are look exactly like each other, in temperament and personality they are exact opposites--John is cruel and brutish to both his family and his employees, while David is considerate, thoughtful and kind to everyone. When John sees the effect that David has on his employees--and his wife--by treating them humanely, he begins to re-evaluate the way his own life has turned out, and why.

Dir: George Terwilliger

A peasant girl marries a Russian nobleman against the wishes of her parents. A son is born to them and the husband takes him away from her so he can be reared in luxury. The wife spends two years searching for her husband, intending to kill him. She is known as the "mad woman," her mind being partially clouded by grief. But when she finds the husband, a reconciliation follows his promise to restore their son to her.

Dir: George Terwilliger

Episode 1: "The Jade Necklace" Dorothy Desmond, an inexperienced Kentucky girl whose father, an editor, had been shot at his desk by a political opponent, and whose mother had dropped dead of shock, found herself left virtually penniless. She believed she had a gift for writing and came to New York to seek a position on a newspaper. She was assigned to Chinatown to get an opium den story. She missed her escort and bravely and foolishly went to Chinatown alone. She yielded to the invitation of a Chinaman to enter his shop and inspect some beads, and he was at the point of attacking her when a storm of revolver shots broke, and a tong war was on. At the crack of the first pistol the Chinese shopkeeper desisted from his evil designs and shoved Dorothy into a secret room, the door of which he closed and locked on the outside. The girl was mad with fear. To her through the deadening walls came the sounds of the shooting. Then the shots ceased as suddenly as they had begun, and she heard faintly the gongs of police ambulances and patrols. Had she been liberated she would have seen white-jacketed emergency surgeons and orderlies picking up dead and wounded Chinamen and putting them into the wagons, while blue-coated officers with busy clubs rounded up other Chinamen, dragging them from all sorts of odd holes and corners and packing them into patrol wagons. "Worst tong fight in years," a sergeant observed pleasantly to a newspaper man. "Seven dead already, and some of the wounded sure to die. These Chinks shoot mighty straight for heathen. In the dark, too. What always puzzled me was how one tong could spot the other tong when they get mixed up in one of these nasty little wars. All Chinks look pretty much alike to me. You can never find out what started one of those shooting festivals. They won't tell a white man a thing. We can take our fill of guessing, though. Maybe it was a woman taken away from a member of one tong by a member of another. Maybe it was opium, maybe, you can think up a whole lot of maybes if you try, but what's the use"?