Rare Cinematic Gems Sharing the Atmosphere of The Hater of Men: Cul...

Dir: Charles Miller

After his wife/model dies of starvation with her portrait unfinished, an impoverished artist meets another woman with a striking resemblance to her.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

John Adams is working his way through college. Jane is the little slavey in his boarding house. John at first has no idea of falling in love with Jane, but she is completely gone on him from the beginning. In fact, he has his eyes on Ethelda Rathbone, a young college girl. There came a time when John wanted to attend a ball at which Ethelda was to be present, but he hadn't a dress suit. Jane chanced to become aware of this, and with her scanty savings rented him one. Of course she couldn't tell him she did that, but she pretends that it was left there by a former boarder. So he goes to the ball. But boys will be boys, and his classmates rip the coat up his back, and he is compelled to come home without having seen Ethelda at all. Jane takes the suit back to the dealer, unaware that it is ruined. When the dealer discovers it, he demands payment. There follows a scene in the street in which she is humiliated. It was then that old Frederick Verstner, the town photographer and a man of considerable means, came to the crowd. Hearing her pitiful story, he made good the amount to the dealer. Shortly after this, Jane went to Verstner's to have her picture taken that she might give it to John. A newspaper in New York was offering a prize for the most beautiful photograph of a college girl, and Verstner's was crowded with girls from the school. Verstner took a picture of Jane, and, by loosening out her tresses and placing something filmy about her shoulders, he made her look beautiful. Through a course of circumstances, and without Jane's knowledge, this photograph is sent along with the others to the paper. And it wins the prize. Jane is, of course, as much surprised as the rest. And so is John. Verstner adopts the girl, educates her and makes her the most popular girl in the place. And then comes a great awakening for John.

Dir: Charles Miller

In a squalid mining town in West Virginia James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination. Even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her. While Fay goes about with security and fearlessness, which causes the ignorant to regard her with almost religious respect, her inner life is in sharp contrast. She has secret haunts, where she hides, and in thought recreates fairyland. Her favorite retreat is a cavern formed by an old abandoned tunnel which she peoples with knights and princesses, gnomes and fairy guardians. The one thing lacking is the Prince. And one day he comes. The "Prince" is a hunchback, "Crip" Halloran, the son of the village drunkard, who stumbles into Fay's imaginary fairyland, and is at once endowed by her with every heroic attribute. Finally Fay's father passes away and Fay becomes a drudge in the hut of ignorant aliens, and the meetings between her and the Prince are few and far between, and "Crip" is almost heartbroken. Jack Rockwell, son of a rich mine owner, comes to look after his property. Chance throws him in contact with Fay, and he becomes infatuated with her charm and idealism. He is admitted to the kingdom and gradually dethrones "Crip," to the hunchback's bitter distress. In love and pity for Fay's misfortune, Rockwell secures a great oculist and an operation opens Fay's eyes to the harsh world that her fancy idealized. She sees her two devoted admirers as they really are, and shrinks with horror from the poor misshapen "Crip." Broken-hearted, the hunchback seeks the old cavern and with a revolver ends a life that holds nothing but hopeless misery. Rockwell and Fay visit their old haunt, and with years of love and happiness opening before them discover the body of the poor hunchback, who had once for a few happy hours reigned as a Prince in a fairy realm of a girl's imagination.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

Just before mountain girl Barbara "Bawbs" Colby's aunt dies, she reveals that Bawbs' deceased father had left her $5000, but to watch out for men because they would only be interested in her for her money. Her aunt's warning is tested when Bawbs falls for a new arrival in the mountains named Ralph Gunther, who says he is an author who's there for the peace and quiet he needs to write.

Dir: Charles Miller

Sylvia Maynard is a stenographer for a theatrical producer and tries to prove to her boss, that she can act by posing as a society woman at a lavish house party. Don Meredith, the struggling playwright who wrote the work in which Sylvia wishes to star, also masquerades as a famous writer at the party in order to prove that the central thesis of his play is valid: that one can pose in any role in high society and get away with it. Sylvia, introduced as the widow of Captain Milton Brown, falls in love with Don, but her joy turns to panic when her supposedly dead husband suddenly appears. The amused captain allows Sylvia to continue her impersonation for a time but advises her to leave the party. Don, heartbroken, also leaves, but after several adventures in which he helps Sylvia retrieve papers stolen during the party by a German spy, the two lovers are reunited in their true identities, and the play debuts successfully.

Dir: Charles Miller

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Bawbs O' Blue Ridge perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

When a distant Irish relative dies, a young American travels to Ireland to obtain his inheritance. He gets far more than he bargained for when a beautiful Irish colleen catches his eye.

Dir: Charles Miller

Young Samson Oakley III is the only son of Samson Oakley II, the distinguished head of a prominent Wall Street firm. When he is expelled from college--although for an offense he didn't commit--his angry father puts him on a small allowance and basically exiles him. However, when he marries a chorus girl, his father disinherits him altogether. Desperately trying to make some money, the young man discovers he has an innate talent as a safecracker. His newfound skill is put to the test, though, when he discovers that several of his father's crooked colleagues are plotting to take over his father's firm by spreading false rumors about his death and stealing some valuable securities.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

Young Polly-Ann works in a small town inn as a maidservant. A troupe of actors comes to town and the innocent girl falls in love with one of its members. Howard Straightlane is sent to the small town by his father, to work as a schoolteacher in hopes of smartening up the young man from his wild ways. Howard soon meets Polly-Ann and saves her from the unscrupulous actor, meanwhile Howard's father has discovered Polly-Ann is his niece and sends for her. Another niece, greedily tries to force Polly to give her, all of her share of the family fortune. Upon hearing this the father insists that Polly return and since she and Howard have fallen in love, his son is now forgiven.

Dir: Charles Miller

Margot Hughes is a butterfly society girl who sells herself to the highest bidder. Her husband does not press his ownership "by right of purchase," and she misunderstands his delicacy and she things that love is lost to her. She goes to France to serve the cause of humanity. There they meet again and understanding comes. For the Program: A loveless marriage that turned out differently. - Moving Picture World, February 2, 1918.

Dir: Charles Miller

Jim Morrison, an English army officer who comes from a very old and prominent family, marries the ravishingly beautiful but unscrupulous Cleo, who has no qualms about using her sexual allure to get the luxuries she wants but that her husband can't provide. When Jim is sent off to war, Cleo embarks on a series of affairs, one of which results in her becoming the love slave of a German spy--the very spy that her husband has been assigned to track down.