Cinematic Discoveries Following the Footsteps of The Jungle: Cult G...

Dir: George Irving

Aerial dancer La Syrena, whose jealous husband kills her while she performs in midair. Her daughter, Jennie Raeburn, soon orphaned, grows up unaware of her mother's occupation, but nonetheless feels the urge to dance. She makes a successful stage debut and gets caught up in the social world of the theater. A cousin from the country, Zachary Trewehella, who has always loved Jennie, disapproves of her sudden obsession with wealth and status, but Jennie ignores his warnings. As a result, she has a disastrous affair with a society man, and realizes that her cousin was correct. In the end, bitter over her last affair, she reluctantly marries Zachary, but soon falls in love with him.

Dir: George Irving

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

At a lavish luncheon in Palm Beach, Walker Farr, a wealthy and idle young man, bets that he can live in perfect contentment as a penniless hobo and sets out to prove it. On the road, Walker meets Kate Kilgour and her fiancé, Richard Dodd, but upon his arrival in the town of Marion he learns that she is being forced into the marriage by her mother, who owes Richard $5,000. Walker helps a deformed but cheerful river man named Etienne Pickerone to retrieve the body of a woman who has drowned herself, and after reading the note found on her clothing, he goes directly to her house and adopts her little girl Rose-Marie. For a time, Walker works as an ice wagon driver to support the child, but a typhoid epidemic caused by contaminated drinking water strikes the town, and Rose-Marie dies. Having learned that Col. Simon Dodd, Richard's uncle and a corrupt local official, is responsible for the epidemic, Walker leads an election campaign that results in Dodd's defeat. After Kate settles her debt with Richard, which leaves her free to marry Walker, the "hobo" discloses his real identity, and all ends happily.

Dir: George Irving

Married to a spy who seeks to induce her to betray her country, the daughter of the American Ambassador to Belmark welcomes the news of her husband's death not knowing that he has merely staged a deception. She becomes the morganatic wife of Prince Leopold, of Belmark, but renounces the marriage that war may be avoided, only to learn that the new alliance means a still greater war. She persuades Leopold to renounce the compact, then saves his life by throwing herself between him and an exploding bomb, but the story does not end there.

Dir: George Irving

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

Loyal slave of the aristocratic Dabney family, Dan is overjoyed when Raoul becomes engaged to Northerner Elsie Hammond and his sister Grace becomes engaged to Elsie's brother John. When the Civil War breaks out, the heartbroken Hammonds return North and John joins the Union army. Raoul joins the Confederacy, but his vindictive overseer, Jonas Watts, becomes a Union officer. Watts takes Grace prisoner, but before he can act on his desires, John rescues her. He then encounters Raoul and is obliged to arrest him, but Dan comes to his aid by throwing red peppers into his captors' eyes. When John is arrested by Confederates, Raoul frees him for Grace's sake, but when his superiors discover his treason, he is sentenced to death. Stonewall Jackson, a family friend, tries to obtain a stay of execution for Raoul, but in the meantime, Dan visits him and convinces his master to blacken his face and take the slave's place. He does, and Dan is executed. After the war, Raoul and Elsie, and John and Grace marry and settle on the Dabney estate.

Dir: George Irving

Edward Swinger contrives to win the hand of the lovely Caroline Pickering by selling her father his business - a business that doesn't actually exist.

Dir: George Irving

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

Louise Lloyd comes to New York to obtain a position and applies to the Hollister Employment Agency, which caters to high class trade, but which is run by a crook and forger named Wilson, with a Mr. Hollister as figurehead, who meets the people and sends applicants. Wilson falls in love with Louise, but she does not reciprocate. Wilson passes a forged check and decides to leave the city till the excitement blows over. Hollister gets him a position with a Mr. White, Toledo millionaire, as private secretary. When the New York job blows over, Wilson returns. While at the White home, he has noticed that Mr. White's New York representative resembles him and plans to cash a check on White's account, disguising himself as Mr. Hart, the New York representative. This he does by forging a check for $35,000 instead of $35.00, his salary. He divides the profits with his co-conspirator, Hollister. The bank calls to its assistance a celebrated lawyer, Edward Knowlton, who, desiring to engage a companion for his elderly sister, stops with his son, Frank, at the Hollister Agency. There the Knowltons meet Louise and offer her the position, but Wilson wants to keep her out of the situation so that, in her poverty and distress, she will accept Wilson's proposal of marriage. Unable to get Louise, Knowlton leaves orders to send someone. When Wilson learns that Knowlton has taken up the case, he says he must get in Knowlton's house as a servant of some kind to watch what clues Knowlton finds. He tells Hollister to send Louise, where she is installed in the house as companion. By her wonderful charm and sweetness, she captivates the entire family, including the son, Frank. Wilson soon finds a way to install himself as valet to Knowlton, just at the time when Knowlton's clues lead him to certain suspicions. As these suspicions point to him, he decides to put Knowlton out of the way. Knowlton and his son, Frank, after dinner, have a parley on the division of the Knowlton property. The will, as made, gives Frank the greater share of the property and Frank's sister the smaller part, whereas Frank believes his sister's share should be increased to equal his own. When the family has gone to bed, Wilson finds Knowlton alone in the library. Wilson strikes, there is a struggle, and he leaves Knowlton for dead, after having stolen and changed the will so that it goes back to the original unequal division of the estate. The body is found and the police called. Wilson, who is supposed to have left for Brooklyn, enters. Questioned by the police, he says the only suspicious circumstances that he noticed was the quarrel over the will between the son and father. The police get the will, notice the change in the son's favor, and accuse the son of the murder. Louise, who has had her suspicions of Wilson, takes the will and says, "Whoever changed this will left a finger mark and blot on the paper." Wilson slyly looks at his hands and. as he does so, Louise calls the police's attention to his queer acting. She orders him arrested, and Wilson, frightened, says, "But I have no blot on my hand," and she holds out the will and says, "Nor is there such a blot on the paper." Wilson, realizing that he is tricked, attempts to escape, but is caught and led away by the police. Louise is taken into Frank's arms as the doctor comes from the father's room saying that Mr. Knowlton will live.

Dir: George Irving

Mountain boy Steve O'Mara, living in the Adirondack Mountains, who loves to fight, is taken in by a well-to-do family after the death of his foster father. Steve is attracted by a young girl, Barbara, who is visiting his family, but she is repelled by his violent behavior. He fights another boy over her affections and then vows not to return until he corrects his ways and makes good. Ten years pass, and Steve has become a road construction engineer with the East Coast Railroad Company. He is trying to complete a railroad being built through his home town. Barbara is now engaged to Archie Wickersham, who for financial reasons is trying to prevent the railroad from being completed. After several delays, Steve brings his rival's unscrupulous business practices to light. When Barbara witnesses the fight that ensues between Steve and her fiancé, she runs off and gets lost in the forest. After a search party is formed, Steve finds her and she realizes that she loves him. Harrigan, one of her fiancé's henchmen, witnesses this tender scene and shoots Steve. Barbara then draws Steve's pistol and shoots Harrigan dead. Only wounded, Steve finally is embraced by Barbara.

Dir: George Irving

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

Gentleman burglar Raffles tries to get his hand on a priceless pearl.

Dir: George Irving

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: George Irving

Daughter of an Eastern lumber king, Stephanie Trent travels in the guise of a schoolteacher to the logging village of Trentsville to search for "a real man." There she meets Jimmy Raymond, a young novelist posing as a local while writing his story. When Stephanie comes to Jimmy's cabin to report a supposed plot against him, he acts as though he intends to assault her. She nearly throws herself out the window but is stopped by Jimmy, who explains that he is working on a novel and merely wanted to determine a young girl's reactions. In retaliation, she orders that he be kidnapped and held in a nearby cabin, but remorsefully nurses him back to health when he is shot trying to escape. They meet again at a hearing in the city, where her father has filed an injunction to prevent publication of Jimmy's novel, and she consents to his proposal of marriage.