Editor's Top Picks Sharing the Atmosphere of The Cock-Eyed World: Cult Guide

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Given a choice between traveling to South America as an emissary for his father's ammunition company and foregoing his weekly allowance, Billy Drake heeds his father's warnings and buys an ocean liner ticket. Before leaving, however, the movie-struck Billy spots a beautiful woman standing in front of a theater and imagines that she is a film star. To his delight, he finds the woman on board his ship, as well as Count Von Nuttenburg, a political troublemaker, who has stolen a movie camera, thinking that it is a new brand of machine gun. Von Nuttenburg shows the camera to Billy, who concludes that the count is a director and the ship is a set for a movie melodrama. When the boat lands at a port torn by revolution, Billy insists that the guns and soldiers are part of the show. Not until he and the girl are seized by the rebels and threatened with death, does he admit his error. By a clever ruse, he escapes from his captors and with the help of Federal troops, defeats the count and wins the heart of his pretty shipmate.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

When spoiled playboy Algernon DePont gets thrown out of Harvard, his father throws him off the family estate. Algernon proceeds to take his butler and drive out West looking for adventure. He finds it when he falls in love with the daughter of a cattle rancher and finds himself the target of a lynch mob.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Blue Blood and Red perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

The life of Sam Houston--soldier, statesman, patriot, and one of the founders of the Republic of Texas--is depicted.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

A boy surrounded by violence grows up to become an infamous gangster.

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

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Before diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany have been severed during World War I, Count Johann von Bernstorff establishes an intricate spy network in America, headed by the treacherous Otto Goltz and his ally, Wolff von Eidel. Their activities result in labor strikes, factory explosions, and transportation disasters. Headquartered in a major U.S. industrial center, Otto marries Lillian O'Grady and treats her so brutally that she eventually dies. Lillian's death is avenged by a young American soldier named Dick Gregory, who is in love with her sister Rosie. Following Otto's death, von Eidel is arrested, but when a group of German sympathizers tries to rescue him, a patriotic vigilante group attacks the jail, shooting the spy and imprisoning the disloyal Americans. In the end, as American forces storm France, Kaiser Wilhelm grows desperate.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

A man is convicted unjustly of a crime and then subjected to inhumane torment in the Yuma Territorial Prison in the Arizona Territory, run by corrupt administrators.

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

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Jack La Salle marries South American heiress Blanquetta Del Castillo, and the two settle into a happy life in New York City. Following the birth of their son, Jack, Jr., however, Jack becomes involved in an affair with the notorious Josie Sabel and thereafter ignores his wife. Outraged upon learning that Jack has taken their son to Josie's apartment, Blanquetta files for divorce, the court finally ruling that the boy must live with each parent for a portion of the year. As the time of little Jack's departure from his father approaches, Jack, Sr. declares that he will never return the boy to his mother, whereupon the tortured Blanquetta shoots and kills her faithless husband. The jury, moved by Blanquetta's desire to love and protect her son, ultimately acquits her.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

A Spanish soldier falls under the spell of a fiery gypsy girl named Carmen. His obsession with her leads to his ruin.

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

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Lady Lou is forced by Hatfield, her cruel foster father, into the dance hall life at a brutal lumber camp. Through the efforts of a stranger who is secretly in love with her, Lou escapes to a neighboring camp where she meets and marries the lumberjack Conahan without telling him of her past. Lou's unsavory past is finally revealed in a confrontation with her foster father, and her husband turns from her in disgust. She is once again saved by the stranger's intervention when he tells Conahan the truth about the girl's life. After Conahan's and Lou's reconciliation, the stranger, no longer needed, wanders alone into the snow.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

When the United States enters World War I, a mother sends her two eldest sons off to the battlefields with a smile, although her heart is breaking. She soon learns that the eldest is missing and the second son is wounded, however, and resolves to keep her youngest at home. The boy, due to the influence of pacifist literature, willingly accompanies his mother on a secret journey to their seaside home, but the father, ashamed that his son is a "slacker," discovers their whereabouts. The three are in the midst of a heated argument when the pitiful survivors of a ship destroyed offshore by a German U-boat come to the house seeking refuge. The mother and son realize the importance of the cause and the son enlists. At Christmas, all three sons come home, the eldest accompanied by his new French bride.