Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of The Hired Man: Cult Guide

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A young man with little ambition is given an opportunity to set himself up in business by means of financial support from his father. But the young man becomes involved in a shady railroad deal which threatens to destroy his own father.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

James Ashe sends his son James Jr. off to manage a family-owned logging mill. While attending to his duties, James Jr. falls in love with a beautiful girl.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Cynthia Brock, accustomed to expensive clothes and fashionable society, finds herself destitute when her father dies. After Fenwick Flint, who recently acquired great wealth, learns that Cynthia owes her dressmaker over $6,000, he attempts to use her to seduce James Gordon, the husband of the woman Flint desires. Although Cynthia refuses at first, when Flint offers her $10,000 she agrees, but at a mountain lodge, after becoming Gordon's friend, Cynthia feels remorseful and tries to get out of the deal. Hearing her sobs, Gordon enters her room and is caught by the conspirators with his arms around her. Gordon agrees to a divorce and offers to marry Cynthia to protect her reputation, but she confesses the scheme. After returning Flint's money, she finds work as a stenographer and pays her debt. Flint marries Gordon's ex-wife, but they later separate, while Gordon, formerly embittered, meets Cynthia again, and they marry.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Other Men's Wives perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

David Clary runs a sleepy little dry-goods store in a sleepy little town. A vamp from the big city shows up, intent on taking Clary for everything he's worth by a combination of seduction and blackmail. But the day is saved by the ingenuity of David's corset model.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A young woman works in the scullery of a grand hotel, and dreams of a life among its fashionable patrons.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of A Nine O'Clock Town perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Millionaire Larry Prentiss inherits a ranch. He decides to visit his new property incognito and gets a job as a ranch-hand. He falls in love with the ranch foreman's daughter and complications ensue.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Matthew Denton is a product of a New England village. His father was a prominent business man who, during the latter part of his life, had encouraged a number of his fellow-townsmen to invest in the Centipede Company, owners of Texas oil property. Matthew lives with his widowed mother. She showers a wealth of motherly care on him, and refuses to permit him to mingle with the other lads of the town, with the result that he grows up tied to her apron strings and is known as "his mother's boy." The purchasers of the Centipede stock receive notice that there will be no dividend, that the stock gives every indication of becoming worthless because of a loss in the wells' producing capacity. A delegation of townspeople call on Matthew's mother and denounce her late husband for having induced them to purchase the stock. Matthew overhears the tirade, comes to his mother's assistance, and declares that none shall lose a penny through this investment, for he will go to Texas, work in the oil fields himself, and eventually pay off the investors. The story shifts from the quaint New England village to a bustling town in Texas, a typical oil town with its hordes of workers, its rudely constructed hotel and ever-present bar, and its town drunkard, who has a wife and a pretty daughter. Matthew begins his career as a workman in one of the oil wells, lives at Mrs. Glenny's boardinghouse, and meets her daughter daughter Mabel. , and lives at the boarding house of Mrs. Glenny, where he meets her daughter, Mabel. To procure liquor money, town drunk Tom Glenny has been tapping the line of the Centipede Company and diverting the flow into another concern. Most of the workers live at the Glenny home, among them Banty Jones, the town bully, who paid Tom Glenny to tap the Centipede line. Banty wants to marry Mabel Glenny, but Matthew wins her love, and the girl proudly displays an engagement ring, Jones gives Matthew 24 hours in which to leave town, with the alternative of being the target for Jones' gun. Matthew's innate timidity makes him cower at Jones' verbal attacks, much to Mabel's disgust; she returns the ring and announces that the engagement is off. Meanwhile, Matthew has discovered the parallel pipe lines, and that night sees Tom Glenny about to tap the Centipede line. He hurries to the telegraph office and notifies the president of the Centipede Company of his discovery. Later, Matthew overhears Jones denounce Tom Glenny for failing to tap the line, and, as he realizes the father of the girl he loves has only been the tool of the bully, the hitherto timid and shrinking boy suddenly turns into a ferocious being. When Jones attempts to assault him he returns his blows with such effectiveness that the battle is soon over, and in Matthew's favor. Then follow a series of exciting episodes, the story ending happily.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

Farmer Toby Watkinsm whose fanciful poetry does not impress his exasperated uncle, leaves the farm to become a subscription solicitor for the "Sawbert Weekly Clarion." In Sawbert, Toby meets Mayor Lot Morris' daughter Jean, and the shy young people fall in love. Crooked stock promoter Kendall Reeves arrives in town and unveils his plan to open a string-bean cannery. While the venture receives the mayor's support, "Clarion" editor Zachary Bartrum, Morris' political enemy, suspects Reeves and decides to block the scheme. On the night Reeves presents his plan to the citizens, Bartrum falls ill and asks Toby to deliver his opposing speech, but seeing Jean in the audience, he loses his courage and dashes from the hall. The next day, Toby overhears Joe Farley, Reeves' former partner, demanding a share of the profits. Farley learns of this and warns Reeves, who goes to the mayor's home and, gun in hand, demands $5,000. Toby arrives and defeats the crook in a fight, after which the grateful mayor becomes reconciled to Bartrum and bestows his blessing on his daughter's romance with Toby.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Jimmy Duncan, the son of the well-respected Reverend Duncan, takes over his local newspaper as manager. He takes on the criminal element in town with great vigor, until he realizes that his own father is in league with those devils.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

During the May Day celebration at Ferryville, Millie Martin, whose stingy father will not buy her proper clothes, watches as Violet Henry, the daughter of the town's richest man, is pushed into a stagnant pool by the village bolshevik. The story amuses Millie's father, who gives her a dollar, with which she buys beauty cream in preparation for her first railway journey. On the train, Millie meets John Turner, a carpet layer disguised as a doctor. Earlier, John fought a man caught cheating at poker. He took his uncle's railway ticket and doctor's bag when he thought the cheater was killed. After Millie feigns a toothache to get John's attention, her father, to avoid a doctor's bill, gives her chewing tobacco as a remedy. When she swallows it, and John orders an operation, the train stops at a nearby sanitarium. After Millie escapes, and John finds her in a room with a baby, they both explain. John is mistaken for a burglar, and after his uncle arrives to straighten matters out, John and Millie are free to pursue romance.