Must-Watch List in the Vein of The Drug Store Cowboy: Cult Guide

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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

Jimmie Moulton, a member of a prominent New York City family, spends two years on a ranch out west and returns to the city, only to find that his fiancee Cora Button has come under the influence of dissolute Victor DeLara, also from a prominent New York family, and is leading her down a path Jimmie believes will destroy her. At a masquerade party given by Victor, called the "Feast of the Gods" in which the cream of New York society costume themselves as figures from Greek mythology, matters finally come to a head.

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The unscrupulous attempts by speculators Dr. West and Jim Prince to have a railroad pass through lower California are met with opposition by Spanish landowners led by Dona Maria Saltonstall, who tries flirting with West to restore their property. Pereo, a religious fanatic who works for Dona Maria, believes in the curse of the Gray Wolf's Ghost: if a member of Dona Maria's family mates with an alien, fortune and life will be lost. Meanwhile, West's son Harry, whom he deserted years before, comes to avenge the wrong done to his mother. After West refuses to recognize Harry and publicly denounces him as a blackmailer, West is murdered and Prince, who wants the West fortune, accuses Harry. Harry is about to be hanged when the first train the lynchers have ever seen passes by. Pereo, thinking that the train is a god, confesses that he killed West and is dragged to death after lassoing the locomotive. Harry restores compromising letters to Dona Maria and receives her consent to marry her daughter Maruja.

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

British India Medical Corps Captain Clyde Mannering returns to England to marry Helen Rutherford, but the wedding is postponed when her father dies. When beautiful Valeska De Marsay confronts Mannering with her child and untruthfully says she was the dead man's wife, Mannering pays her a large sum of money to protect his fiancée and her mother from hurt and dishonor, but Helen's mother, witnessing the pay-off, assumes that Mannering was involved with the girl and refuses to let the wedding proceed. Mannering returns to India where he secludes himself, treating the native population. Helen, her mother, and Valeska, now Mrs. Rutherford's traveling companion, visit India to look after Helen's brother Dick, a customs officer in trouble for accepting bribes from renegade high-caste Hindu, Rajput Nath. When Valeska tries to seduce both Rajput and Dick, Rajput kills her and forces Dick to say it was suicide. After Mannering saves Helen first from scarlet fever and later from Rajput, she and Mannering are reunited.

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Dan Burke, newly-arrived in the Yukon, is ridiculed as a tenderfoot when he attempts to find the pocket of flat gold (gold that is black, soft, and flat "like coins from the mints of hell") which Old Man Chaudiare, to keep its location secret, has not claimed. After Dan and his dog team encounter a blizzard, they are saved when Chaudiare and his daughter Aline hear the dogs howl. As Aline nurses Dan, they fall in love, even though he thinks that her mother is an Indian. After Dan thrashes Clay Hibbing, who earlier attacked Aline for refusing to disclose the mine's location, Hibbing and his pal Reirdon find the mine. Dan, although suspected of committing Hibbing's murder of Reirdon, also discovers the mine and races against Hibbing to claim it for Chaudiare. Hibbing freezes to death, Chaudiare makes Dan his partner, Dan is found innocent of killing Reirdon, and Aline, upon learning that she is not a half-breed, marries Dan.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of For a Woman's Honor perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

In the tiny Latin American country of Altamura, American architect, sculptor, and adventurer Larry Donovan is executing a magnificent palace for the vain, diminutive Governor Romero, who is angered by Larry's lack of respect. After leading his co-workers in a riotous Fourth of July celebration, Larry responds to the insults of Generalissimo Pedro Mendez by knocking him out. Mendez' sweetheart Rosa, plotting for Mendez to be governor, hides him in the mountains and fakes his funeral so that Larry will be executed and Romero thrown out. When Larry is taken to the whitewashed execution wall, however, he appeals to Romero's conceit and gets a one-week reprieve to build a statue of Romero for the palace. Before his time is up, Larry receives a gun in jail from an Irish friend using the name of Patricio Cassidano, who also proves that Larry did not kill the now deceased Mendez. After he uses Romero as a shield to escape, Larry obtains Romero's consent to marry his pretty niece Concha.

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A lady marries a horse trainer but withholds herself until her crippled brother is cured.

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

In the gold fields of the Canadian Northwest, a man is falsely accused of a crime and determines that a lookalike is responsible.

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Bruce Winthrop, disguised as a clerk in the American consulate near the Mongolian border, is actually a secret United States government operative sent to quell a Chinese rebellion led by Tai Chen. His fiancée, Beryl Addison, the daughter of an antique collector, unaware of his mission, cannot understand why Bruce is so attentive to the seductive Tai, and calls off the engagement. Bruce accepts Tai's offer of a position in the interior of Mongolia and learns of revolutionary plans to put Tai on the throne. Tai confesses her love for Bruce and offers him a high position. Bruce succeeds in reading the secret list of revolutionaries, but when the list gets in the hands of Beryl's father, he and Beryl are captured and threatened with death. Bruce rescues them, and the revolutionaries return home. In the end, Tai kills herself, and Winthrop and Beryl are reunited.

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The adventures of a gentlemanly crook of astonishing resourcefulness.