Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of The Girl Without a Soul: Cult Guide

Dir: John H. Collins

President of the Buttonhole Makers' Union Abe Cohen, loses his job in Sam Blumenthal's East Side sweatshop when he endorses Timothy Murphy for alderman over Steve O'Roque, to whom Blumenthal is indebted. After Murphy helps Cohen start a kosher restaurant, Cohen learns that he and his former co-worker, Kitty McGee, won $10,000 in the lottery. He gives free meals to his customers, but when Kitty discovers that her purse containing half of the ticket was stolen, Cohen clears the "loafers" out. Cohen's daughter Minnie, in love with Blumenthal, secretly marries him, but Blumenthal, already married although separated from his wife, keeps Minnie's ring and their marriage certificate. Doubting the marriage, Cohen turns Minnie out, but when Blumenthal's wife appears, and Minnie's suitor, David Moss, whom Cohen likes, finds her, the marriage is invalidated and Cohen reconciles with his daughter. Mixing with the underworld, Cohen outwits the thief who stole Kitty's ticket. Despite a flood coming down from the apartment above, the ensuing celebration marks Minnie and David's engagement.

Dir: John H. Collins

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of God's Law and Man's perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dr. Claude Drummond, a young English doctor in India, saves Ameia, a young girl, from being sacrificed to the priests of the temple of Krishna by buying her as his wife. Returning to England upon the death of his elder brother, who was the heir to the estate, Claude finds that his father has arranged a marriage between himself and Olive Dennison, the daughter of the Major-General. To please his father, Claude is about to submit to the marriage, although neither he nor Olive love each other, when Ameia arrives from India. Discovering that her existence is a barrier to her husband's advantageous alliance, Ameia takes poison but is saved by an antidote administered by Claude. It is then discovered that Ameia is actually the daughter of Major-General Dennison, by a native wife whom he had deserted. Thus, Claude finds it possible to be true to his love and to his father's wish that he marry the general's daughter.

Dir: John H. Collins

In order to avenge the disgrace and subsequent death of her sister, New York theatrical star Audrey Graham joins an 1870's caravan bound for the Western town of Silver Bar, where Alvin Steele, the man who betrayed Audrey's sister, now lives. The homesteaders run out of supplies and are dying of thirst on the parched Western plains when they reach the hideout of an outlaw named Zachary Wando. Zachary at first refuses them water, but Audrey, disguised as a child, melts his heart and he relents. After learning of Audrey's deception, however, he threatens to hold her captive unless she brings Steele, with whom his wife Lou is having an affair, to his camp. Audrey locates Steele, captivates him with her beauty, and then leads him to Zachary, who gives Lou a gun and orders her to choose between them. Lou shoots Steele and is then reconciled to her husband, while Audrey returns to New York, her desire for vengeance satisfied.

Dir: John H. Collins

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

Evelyn and her boyfriend William Bard are members of a small Shaker community. They rock the community one day when they announce that they want to get married and have children, in direct opposition to the Shaker prohibition against marriage and procreating. The Shakers drive the couple out of town, but before she leaves Evelyn gives birth to a daughter, Eve. Shortly afterward Evelyn dies, and the Shakers inform William that their daughter Eve has died also. William leaves town, but vows to take his revenge on the Shakers, whom he blames for the loss of his family.

Dir: John H. Collins

Norton Burbeck, a young man in line for a large inheritance, is in love with the beautiful Beatrice Gaden. What he doesn't know is that she is conspiring with Norton's cousin Howard to swindle Norton out of the inheritance. Norton, however, has an ace up his sleeve that Beatrice and Howard don't know about.

Dir: John H. Collins

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

Perry Bascom comes to the town of Rising Sun, Indiana, to take charge of the sawmills which have for years been managed by his father's best friend, Col. Henry Clay Risener. His father's half-brother, Jack, has brought the name into disrepute in the town, so he (Perry) decides to be known as Jim Nelson. Perry sees June, who has been sent away from the poorhouse. He shares his lunch with her and protects her from the attentions of Ben Boone, the political bully of the town. June finds a home with old Jacob and Cindy Tutwiler, taking the place of their own daughter, whom Jacob had banished from home eighteen years before, and whose picture has been turned to the wall. Perry becomes the conservative candidate for Congress, opposing Ben Boone, who is the candidate of the liberal party. Perry asks June to marry him if he proves successful. Perry receives a call from Sue Eudaly, with whom he has gone through a marriage ceremony, but whom he left on finding she had a husband living. Her husband, Jim White, has disappeared, and she defies Perry to prove her previous marriage. She threatens to go to the rival candidate with her information, and Col. Risener, as Perry's campaign manager, buys her off. June is alarmed at the interest Sue shows in the man she loves, and Perry urges her to marry him at once, secretly. June continues to live with the Tutwilers. She has discovered that their daughter, who had married a hated Bascom, was her own mother, and that she is the granddaughter of Jacob and Cindy. Ben Boone has fallen in love with Sue, and his affection is returned. At the political rally June leads the village band, trying to drown out the voice of Boone when he harangues the crowd. The tide seems to be turning against Boone. Sue, deciding to explode a bomb in the camp of his opponents, takes her stand beside Perry and tells them he is a Bascom. She says she knows the wife he has deserted. June says that it is not true, since she herself is his wife. But the townspeople will not listen. They believe that he has deceived June, and refuse to believe anything good of a Bascom. The Tutwilers take June home with them and Perry is ordered to get out of town. Perry goes to the Tutwilers' to see June before he leaves. Sue is there. He denies that she is his wife, but she horrifies them all by saying that if Perry's father lured June's mother away from home. Perry and June are brother and sister. Cindy dispels that thought by producing a photograph of June's father. It is Jack Bascom, the half-brother of Perry's father, not a true Bascom by birth. Perry goes away to obtain proof of Sue Eudaly's husband, and June leaves the house, refusing to have anything to do with her grandfather until he retracts his insults to Perry. Ostracized by the townspeople, June lives in a humble cottage, where her child is born. Cindy goes to see the little one, but June will not permit Jacob to come until he admits that he is sorry. Perry at last returns with proof of Jim White's marriage to Sue. He seeks Boone at the mill. Boone cannot understand why Sue refuses to marry him. She finally tells him it is because she has a husband living, and that husband is Perry. Boone attacks Perry and overpowers him. Placing him on the log-carriage, he turns the great lever. He has locked June, who has followed her husband, inside the office. Then he and Sue make their escape. Through the glass door June watches her husband's body approaching the teeth of the saw. Breaking the glass of the door, she plunges out, and, reversing the lever just in time, saves Perry from the saw. Misfortune overtakes Sue and Boone, and with their baneful influence removed, June, Perry and the little one begin a happier life in the little town, with the love and respect of all.

Dir: John H. Collins

Jimmy Carter, a millionaire, leading an idle, indulgent life, gets an urgent message from his friend, Reginald Travers. Travers, who is dying, has been ruined in the stock market by Mortimer Reynolds, and penniless, he leaves his little daughter in care of Carter, who promises faithfully to look after her. After the death of Travers, Carter takes Ruth to his luxurious home and gives her to the motherly care of Mrs. Jenkins, his housekeeper, Mortimer Reynolds, anxious to add Ruth to his list of unfortunates, instructs his mistress, Edna Morris, to make her acquaintance and to gain her confidence. Carter and Reynolds become bitter enemies because of Reynold's sarcastic reflections on the relationship between Carter and Ruth. As time passes, Ruth, by her winsomeness and innocence gradually changes Carter's mode of life. He no longer feels an interest in the gay life of former days, and even loses his taste for the morning nip. Unconsciously, Ruth is transforming his sympathetic dutiful interest in her to love. In a moment of ecstasy he crushes her in his arms. At the Charity Ball, where Ruth is taking part in a tableau, she meets Edna Morris. Fearful of Reynold's wrath should she fail, the unhappy girl works her way into the graces of Ruth. Carter sees this and immediately takes Ruth home, refusing to explain his conduct to her. Meeting Ruth in the park the following day, Edna denounces Carter for his action of the previous evening, "Why should he object to me, pray? Everybody knows that your father didn't leave you a penny, and that you are living on the, shall I say, generosity, of Mr. Carter." Stunned by the revelation that she is looked upon as Carter's mistress, the impetuous little girl rushes to the house, and in a burst of fury, screams her hatred of Carter. In the still of the night, she makes her way out of the house to Edna's apartment. It is here that Reynolds finds her. Impelled by a fiendish lust, he forces her to partake of his wines, and slowly they begin to work their effect. Carter, who, in desperation, has been searching for her, finds her in the apartment, stupefied and disheveled. Disgusted and heartsore, he looks upon her contemptuously and leaves, feeling that she has gone the way of Edna. Mrs. Morris, Edna's mother, prompted by a subconscious feeling that all is not well with her child, comes to the house from her little cottage in the country. She takes both penitents back home with her, hoping that they may forget and begin life anew. Meanwhile, Reynolds, whose financial affairs have taken a turn for the worse, and who is being sought by the police for forgery, attempts to make his escape. He is caught by the police and so made to pay for the misery and misfortune which he has brought upon others. Miserable and despairing because Carter has mistaken her, Ruth can find no peace. But Edna, she who has dragged her to darkness and degradation, succeeds in lifting her once more to the light of hope. The once impetuous Ruth is again folded in the arms of Carter, knowing that there only will she find eternal happiness and peace of soul.

Dir: John H. Collins

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

Echo, the orphaned "flower of no man's land," has been raised by an Indian foster father, Kahoma. Then, when opera singer Roy Talbot goes West to recover his health, Echo falls instantly in love and forgets all about Big Bill, her cowboy sweetheart. Roy marries Echo and takes her back East, but soon after returning to his adoring public, he loses all interest in her. Finally, Echo leaves Roy and goes back to the wilderness, where she discovers that Roy had already been married when they met and had deserted his wife years before. For so deceiving his adopted daughter, Kahoma tracks Roy down and kills him, while Echo forgets about her big-city unhappiness and returns to Big Bill, with whom she makes plans to marry.

Dir: John H. Collins

Krishna Dhwaj, the son of the Maharajah of Rhamput, is in love with Lakshima, the daughter of the Maharajah of Bhartari, but their fathers will not allow them to marry. Krishna is then sent to Harvard to get an American education. Lakshima, determined to kill herself when her father orders her to marry an old man, jumps into the ocean. She does not drown, however, but is rescued by George Morling, a Bostonian, who smuggles her on board his ship dressed in boy's clothing. George, the son of a minister, is engaged to a proper Bostonian woman. Although he has not behaved improperly, George fears that his fiancé and her father will not understand the situation, and so he hides Lakshima in a trunk. Once back in Boston, George's fiancé discovers Lakshima and is horrified, but after several misunderstandings, George and his fiancé are reconciled, and Lakshima is able to find and marry her Indian sweetheart Krishna.

Dir: John H. Collins

Feodor Turov, chief of the Russian Czar's secret police, orders his Cossacks to attack a village he believes to be infested with rebels. The Cossacks attack the village and massacre almost everyone, and the young Katerina is whipped to death. Before escaping to England, her sister Darya swears to avenge her sister's death. Years later--now one of the world's most famous prima ballerinas--she returns to Russia. Turov falls in love with her and manages to secure a meeting. She coyly asks him to take her to see a prison first. As it turns out, what he has planned for her is nothing compared to what she has planned for him.