The Essential Watchlist that Capture the Essence of The Hate Ship: Cult Guide

Dir: Tom Collins

When the body of Wall Street broker Norman Temple is found dead in his office, the police arrest contractor James Borden for the crime on the testimony of Temple's secretary that Borden had threatened her employer over an unpaid note. Also under suspicion is Temple's Japanese valet, who quarreled with his employer the day before the murder. Tex, a detective, enters the case, following his own leads which prove the valet innocent. Tex finally deduces that Minkin, one of Temple's clerks, shot his employer when he interrupted the clerk robbing his safe. With Tex's revelation, Minkin's room is searched, the stolen bonds found and Borden is freed.

Dir: Frank Lloyd

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Woman in Room 13 perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband. She finds this out, but does not know he is bent on vengeance. She is inveigled to go to Turner's apartment, where she meets Turner's former "flame." One of them leaves the apartment which is "Room 13." Returning from the West, Ramsey is taken to an adjoining room by Bruce, and listens to a conversation in "Room 13" between a man and a woman. He is convinced it is his wife's voice. Maddened he rushes to the room and batters down the door. He confronts Turner and shoots him. At the trial Ramsey will go free if his wife confesses she was in the room She does and he is acquitted. A reconciliation follows. - Moving Picture World 1920

Dir: Tom Collins

Tex clears an innocent man who has been found guilty of murdering a man who was molesting his sweetheart. One of the 'Tex' detective series.

Dir: Robert Thornby

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

When Mrs. Chapman Price, the daughter of wealthy socialite Mrs. Janney, quarrels with her husband over her mounting gambling debts, he packs his suitcase and moves out. Desperate to pay off her debts, Mrs. Price rifles her mother's safe but discovers that its contents are missing. The blame points to Chapman Price and Esther Maitland, Mrs. Janney's private secretary. When the Price baby is kidnapped and held for ransom, Esther is suspected of that crime, too. Only Dick Ferguson, a neighbor, believes in Esther's innocence. After several misadventures, Esther discovers that the kidnapping was perpetrated by the detective whom Mrs. Price hired to unravel the burglary, which was committed by Ferguson's servant. Thus cleared, Esther joins the man who believed in her, and the Prices are reconciled.

Dir: Tom Collins

Tex, a famous detective, recounts the story of how he went into the crime business: While visiting his old friend, Jack Nelson, a dispute breaks out between Nelson and his butler. Later that night, Nelson is murdered, and the next morning the murder weapon, a knife, is discovered next to the body. Edna, the victim's wife, seizes the knife, and Tex, fearing that she is about to kill herself, throws the weapon out the window. Interpreting Tex's actions as incriminating, the police arrest him, and he is sentenced to prison. Two years later, a fire breaks out at the penitentiary, and Tex's bravery in saving the warden's wife and child wins him a pardon. Determining to solve Nelson's murder, Tex searches for the butler but discovers him to be innocent. Summoned to Edna's deathbed, Tex hears her confess to the crime, thus causing him to devote his life to solving crimes and saving innocents from being convicted on circumstantial evidence.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

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

At a party thrown at the Metcalf estate, the Marquise D'Irancy's Sultana diamond disappears when the lights go out during a power failure. Suspected of the crime is William Kirkland, the wastrel son of the wealthy Kirkland family, but William's sister Diana comes to his defense. Aiding her in the investigation is Clamp, a wandering peddler. After several misadventures, Clamp reveals that he is a secret service agent on the trail of the international criminals, the de Vallignacs, who are summering at the resort. After proving that the de Vallignacs have stolen the diamond, Clamp arrests his prey, clears William and marries Diana.

Dir: Thomas R. Mills

Returning from the war front, Captain Phoebe Plunkett accepts an assignment to apprehend jewel smugglers in pursuit of the Sultana diamond. On his mission, he meets Patricia Melton, who introduces herself as a French Secret Service agent also in search of the diamond. Plunkett is in love with Olga Karakoff, daughter of a wealthy jeweler, and he soon comes to suspect that Olga's father is in league with the smugglers. However, Patricia is the true impostor, and after she discovers that the jewel is encased in a locket worn around Olga's neck, she captures Olga and the diamond. Plunkett comes to the rescue and wins both Olga and a large reward for recovering the jewel.

Dir: Harry L. Franklin

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

Audacious Jeanne works in a book bindery, is given a diary written by one Thomas Dodd to bind. The diary portrays Dodd as a scoundrel who fathered a girl by a woman he never married, and Dodd's family as a nest of vipers. Jeanne decides it is her duty to save this corrupt family and presents herself to Dodd as his illegitimate daughter. In fact, Dodd is a meek old man whose scandalous diary was pure fantasy, and the only hostile member of the family is Dodd's greedy brother Jerry, who was the only sympathetic character in Dodd's diary. Jeanne falls in love with Dodd's nephew Kent, though she dutifully urges him to marry Hazel Jenkins, a woman whom Jeanne believes Kent has wronged. Finally Sarah Ross, the alleged mother of Dodd's child, ends Jeanne's suspicions by denying that she had ever had a daughter. After foiling Jerry's plan to usurp the family fortune, Jeanne confesses her charade and accepts Kent's love. Dodd likewise admits that his diary is a fake and proposes to Sarah.

Dir: Maurice Tourneur

A thief known as The Hawk has stolen the treasured Garter from the British Museum. One of the men pursuing the thief is mistakenly thought to be The Hawk himself, and so must seek his quarry while himself being hunted.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that she has a son Dick, once unjustly jailed by Judge Sturgis, but now working as a reporter while still maintaining an association with the Brownlow gang. Quarrelling with her stepmother, Edith leaves home, meets Dick and falls in love. While Dr. and Mrs. Allen (whom Edith met on the steamer) are visiting in the Sturgis home, the doctor's valuable radium is stolen from the safe, and Judge Sturgis is found murdered. Dick, though with Edith at the time, is accused of the crime. Finally, an old shoemaker confesses that he entered the house to steal the radium, with which to cure his crippled son, and witnessed the judge's slaying by the Brownlow gang. Dick is freed and finds happiness with Edith, and the doctor helps the crippled boy.