Essential Cult Cinema Mirroring the Impact of The Girl Angle: Cult Guide

Dir: Edgar Jones

The "the girl" can't make up her mind which man she loves, the three men decide to play a trick on her.

Dir: Edgar Jones

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

A Mountie searching for known moonshiners falls in love with the sister of a man associated with them.

Dir: Edgar Jones

James Sheridan becomes wealthy and a power in a Middle West city, where his entire life is absorbed in the turmoil of his own creation. The only thing he lacks is social standing, and this he strives to gain by methods he has successfully employed in driving a business deal. His two oldest sons, Jim and Roscoe, like him are products of the turmoil, but the youngest, Bibbs, is a weakling with a penchant for books. The father insists on Bibbs working in the factory, but as it is distasteful to him, and he is physically unfit for the task, his health fails and he is sent to a sanitarium. In the same city lives the Vertrees family, poor, but true aristocrats, and Sheridan determines that his son Jim should marry the young daughter Mary, and thus make a wedge for the family into social prominence. He arranges a big dinner, with a vulgar display of luxury, which Mary Vertrees is compelled to attend because of a financial obligation Sheridan holds over her father. That night she is made to understand that she is to marry Jim, and she concedes to make the sacrifice. At the height of the dinner party Bibbs returns from the sanitarium but the family ignores him and Mary is attracted to him out of pity. Middle son Roscoe is unhappily married to Sibyl; like his father he is lost in the turmoil of endeavor, and she is obliged to seek companionship elsewhere. She becomes infatuated with Robert Lamhorn, a worthless young man who is secretly engaged to Edith, the only daughter of the House of Sheridan. Jim proposes to Mary Vertrees, and she asks him to wait a while for her answer. Sibyl and Edith quarrel over Lamhorn, and Sibyl, knowing Mary's hold over the elder Sheridan, asks her to go to him and tell him that Edith and Robert are engaged and that Robert is only marrying her for her money. Sibyl's words remind Mary that she will be doing the same thing if she marries Jim. She writes Jim a letter refusing his offer of marriage. Much to his father's delight, Jim has built a large warehouse in half the time contractors said was necessary for the undertaking. Accompanied by inspectors, Jim is on the roof of the building when it collapses, and he is killed. Sheridan is brokenhearted over his death; his sorrow is doubled by the fact that Roscoe, worried over "domestic affairs, has taken to drink. He then strives harder than ever to make Bibbs a thorough businessman, and his successor. Edith elopes with Robert, and Bibbs is the only one left to him. Bibbs has become attached to Mary, and on her advice agrees on a business career. She loves him, but thinks his attentions are prompted through pity for her. She refuses his proffer of marriage for the same reason she refused his brother. When Bibbs learns this, he quits his place with his father, and he informs him he does not want any of his fortune. Sheridan awakens to the situation, and pays Mr. Vertrees $50,000 for some worthless street railway stock. Mary's family thus becomes financially comfortable, she accepts Bibbs' renewed proposal of marriage, and he becomes the leading spirit in the Sheridan enterprises.

Dir: Edgar Jones

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

The doctor is in love with the girl and, as her father's consent and presence is required, this is obtained by sending the old man across the stream on a rope railway, but not allowing him to land before he gives his consent to the wedding which is all planted on the opposite shore.

Dir: Edgar Jones

Mary Lane and her cousin Claiborne want to sell some land left to them by their family. Real-estate agent Roland Manning falls in love with her, and prepares a deal that will make money for both of them. However, shady land speculator Wade Dempster plots to get Claiborne drunk and swindle him out of the land. In order to get the honest Roland out of the way, he has him framed for a murder that Wade himself committed. Things look hopeless for Roland.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Cupid, Registered Guide perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A girl's brother has an ungovernable temper. After an outburst of great vehemence, the hero persuades the girl to elope with him. They are followed by her brother. A pious man, known as the Mediator, tries to hold him while the pair seek to get away. It develops that he is the girl's father. In the melee a lamp is overturned and a forest fire results. The old man, without disclosing his secret, leads them to safety but the brother perishes in the flames.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A big company is trying to get some land held by squatters. One of the lumbermen sides with the settlers and remains to help fight their battles. He is assisted by the school-teacher, but the remainder of the inhabitants are listless and down-hearted. He finally wakes them up, and when the lumbermen return, after licking their leader, reveals the fact that he is the new president of the lumber company.

Dir: Edgar Jones

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

Roscoe Tracy, the foreman of a large mining camp, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for robbery and murder. In his absence, his little daughter Joan is raised by mine superintendent Robert Carter. Many years after her father's conviction, Joan receives an anonymous note advising her to examine the contents of a chest that is stored in a certain warehouse. Carter, alarmed by this development, tries to secure the trunk himself, but not before it is purchased at an auction by Jim Younger and his friends. Joan, who loves Jim, informs the young man of the chest's value, and when Carter and his men steal the box, Jim pursues them and retrieves it. The trunk contains a note revealing that Carter and his accomplice Joe Morgan, the mine's telegrapher, framed Tracy for the crimes that they had committed. Tracy is finally released from prison, and Joan weds Jim.

Dir: Edgar Jones

Through negotiations with the neighboring monarch, the King of Zollenstein arranges for his son to marry the Princess of Saxonia, but later discovers that the prince already has wed Lady Maulfrey Le Fay in secret. The king angrily exiles his son to England but while on his deathbed, calls him back to Zollenstein where Lady Le Fay dies in childbirth. After the prince succeeds to the throne, Boris, his father's illegitimate brother, bribes Betta, Lady Le Fay's maid, to kill the baby boy as part of a plot to overthrow the prince. Instead of slaying the child, Betta hides him and raises him as her own, calling him John Mortimer. When the new king dies in an accident, Boris claims the crown, but the Grand Chancellor, his enemy, meets John by chance and, struck by his resemblance to the Royal Family, declares him the true heir. Boris attempts to discredit John, but Betta produces proof of his heritage. Crowned king, John then marries Princess Zenia, the daughter of his father's jilted betrothed.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A guide teaches a rich man and his spoiled daughter a lesson in the Maine woods.