Hand-Picked Alternatives for Fans of The Little Girl Next Door: Cult Guide

Dir: Richard Foster Baker

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

New England codfish-packer Silas Kidder wants his son to succeed him in the business, but because young Cuthbert seems interested only in playing pool, his father turns him out. In Chicago, Cuthbert beats a gang of pool sharks at their own game, and in anger they steal all his money and knock him out cold. He is picked up by tin-can magnate James Knight and his pretty daughter Julie, who invite him to recuperate at their estate. As he is rummaging through the icebox at midnight, Cuthbert encounters and captures two burglars and is subsequently hailed as a hero by Knight. Next, Cuthbert, posing as an inventor, persuades Knight to finance the marketing of a "cutless" can invented by clerk Bill Atwell. Kidder's Keyless Kutless Kan becomes a success and the young man earns a fortune. After exposing a bogus count who has tried to woo Julie, Cuthbert wins her love and takes her home to meet his proud father.

Dir: Richard Foster Baker

Three Keys girls quarrel over a hotel left by their uncle, each claiming the property. Rose and May are very prim and put on all the airs of country belles, while Teddy is a harem-scarem tomboy, full of mischief and fun. Snaggs, a designing old lawyer, has the will of the uncle, and he has just jilted Matilda Jenkins, a wealthy widow, because she lost her fortune, and now plots to win the hand of one of the Keys girls, and get the hotel. He tells the girls their uncle has left all his property to the one who shall be declared the homeliest by the first drummer who stops at the hotel. They all refuse to enter the contest, Snaggs therefore makes love to Teddy, trying to get her to consent to pose as the ugliest of the daughters. Grimes, Teddy's suitor, suspects Snaggs and urges the girls to get hold of the will. Rose and May disguise themselves as foreign women and go to the hotel in the hopes of discovering it. The widow is already there in man's attire, hoping to get a chance to get revenge on Snaggs. Teddy dresses as a drummer and also takes a room at the hotel, in order to put one over on Snaggs. Snaggs falls into her trap and bribes her to pick out the homeliest. In the meantime the two suitors of Rose and May have hired anarchists to blow up the safe and get the will. They put a bomb under the safe just when all the principals are arguing in the lobby. They get the will but Teddy grabs it and reads a clause which says the sisters can divide the property if they wish. Then ensues a battle in which all are more or less damaged, disguises are torn off and the identities of all revealed.