Cinematic Discoveries Resonating with the Themes of The Forgotten W...

Dir: Park Frame

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.

Dir: Park Frame

In the African desert, a white man, embittered at an injustice, turns his back on his kind and becomes the leader of a band of outlaws. But a chance encounter with a lovely young woman restores his faith in his race.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Man Who Turned White perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Park Frame

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.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

Confidence artist Flossie Golden attempts to fleece foolish but wealthy James Venable with a breach-of-promise suit. Venable's shrewd attorney, Richard Harding, outwits Flossie by proposing that she marry Venable and live on an allowance of $3,000 per year. Flossie is determined to get even with Harding for ruining her plans. In an attempt to con him, she poses as Innocence Page, but falls in love and marries him instead. Larry, Flossie's former accomplice, endeavors to blackmail her with her errant past, but Harding is already cognizant of the facts and Larry fails.

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

Dir: Park Frame

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.

Dir: Robert N. Bradbury

A simple country girl, brutally mistreated by her stepfather, awakens first the sympathy, then the love, of The Boy. The Spider, who lusts after The Girl, makes a bargain with the stepfather and takes her to the city where, kept prisoner, she is soon broken in health and spirit. Cast out and near death, she is taken in by The Boy. Following the demise of The Spider, The Boy takes her to church, where he prays, and after many hours she is restored to health.

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

Dir: William Parke

Bruce Wendell, the son of West Virginia coal mine owner James Wendell, graduates from West Point and prepares to lead a fighting unit to the front during World War I. As his father lies dying, however, he convinces Bruce to remain at home and guard the mine. Bruce's fiancée Ann Blair assumes that he is a coward and breaks off their engagement, but her brother Bobbie remains Bruce's loyal friend. Meyer, a German agent, persuades railroad president Parrish to refuse to transport Wendell's coal, but when Bruce adamantly refuses to close the mine, the spy's men decide to blow it up. While Ann is being abducted by Meyer, Bobbie is buried in an explosion at the mine. Bruce rescues Bobbie and then sends a plea to Lieutenant Parrish to rescue Ann. Meyer and his gang are captured and Ann renews her vow of love to Bruce.

Dir: Bruno Ziener

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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

Dir: Eduardo Notari

A crime drama in the Gennariello-series. The police detective in Naples that is confronted with modern gangsters and crime events.

Dir: Park Frame

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.