Cinematic Discoveries Resonating with the Themes of The Love Girl: Cult Guide

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Living with her drunkard father in the North Woods mountains, Betty Yarnell is shunned by the villagers whenever she ventures out to pick up her father from Abner Grimp's saloon, and her only friend is a little lamb. In debt to Abner, John Yarnell signs a note turning over his daughter to Abner in return for unlimited drinks. When Abner goes to the cabin to claim Betty, revenue officer Ralph McGibbon arrives from the city and rescues her. Abner sends his Indian partner Dark Cloud, but Ralph rescues Betty again, although he is badly beaten up. Betty nurses Ralph, and even sacrifices her lamb to prepare broth for him. The sheriff decides to auction off Betty to the highest bidder. Abner demands that she be turned over to him, but Ralph fights him and manages to win Betty.

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

When Richard Earle marries Elaine Bronson for her money, he orders her to keep the marriage a secret so that he may continue his affair with a married woman, Lucille Bennett. Jimmy Newton falls in love with Elaine and takes her to his home after she is injured in a car accident. When Richard discovers the two together, he beats Elaine, until Lucille, having discovered Richard's duplicity and cruelty, enters the house and shoots him. Free of Richard, Elaine becomes engaged to Jimmy.

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Famous romance writer Hartly Poole retreats to the country for inspiration. There he meets ardent admirer Justina Chaffin, who is about to marry a fortune-hunting scoundrel. After Justina and Hartly fall in love, she discovers her fiancé's deception and flees to Hartly's cottage. Seeing her car parked in front, the sheriff accuses Hartly of abduction, but all is resolved when Justina and Hartly exchange vows.

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

Muggsy Mulane, who wears boy's clothing, jumps a freight train to the country after Jimmy "the Eel," the leader of the gang of crooks with whom she works, is arrested. In the village of Cottonville, Muggsy befriends Aunt Sarah, whom she later discovers is Jimmy's mother. When Muggsy learns that the greedy Judge Cotton, who holds the mortgage on Aunt Sarah's property, is planning to foreclose, she threatens to blackmail him, and he relents. Next, Muggsy sells a part of Aunt Sarah's property for far more than it is worth, and finally convinces Jimmy to come home to his mother and live the straight life.

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In an English mining town during the 1870s, Joan Lowrie falls in love with Fergus Derrick, the new chief engineer who vows to improve working conditions. Joan's father Don, however, runs the mine and likes conditions just as they are. As a result, he quickly learns to detest the crusading Fergus, even to the point of trying to murder him. Joan saves Fergus, after which Don is killed by one of the workers whom he habitually mistreated. Don's death removes the only impediment to Joan's romance as well as to improvements in the mine, so while Joan and Fergus make plans for their marriage, plans also are developed to make the mine safer and more efficient.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Danger, Go Slow perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Joan runs away from home and becomes a cashier at a restaurant, but quits when the manager attempts to make love to her. She meets Louie, with whom she was once friendly, and he forces her to steal for him. She is caught and sentenced to a state reformatory.

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A poor hat-check girl loses her job and is forced to get a job as a dancer at a roadhouse. There she falls in love with the son of a rich businessman. The boy's father, believing her to be after the family's money, determines to embarrass her and show his son what she really is.

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

Nancy Lee is a well-bred member of the Virginia aristocracy. Her father forbids her marriage to the man she loves for reasons of social inequality. She consents to marry a wealthy man on her social plane in order to help her family out of difficulty, but he eventually leaves her a desolate widow in New York. Her efforts to extricate herself from this dilemma further subject her to shame, and disaster looms unless the young man she loved can save her.

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The cabaret act of husband-and-wife dancing team Peggy and Joe Blondin is broken up when Joe becomes consumptive and is ordered West to recuperate. Peggy remains in New York to maintain the couple's income but gradually becomes desperate when letters sent her by her husband request more and more money. Joe's letters actually are being intercepted and rewritten by millionaire Harlan Quinn, who has designs on Peggy and wishes to portray Joe's situation as hopeless. After receiving a particularly alarming letter, Peggy consents to sell her honor to Harlan, but Joe arrives, fully recovered, just as the villain knocks on her door. The two men fight until Peggy's stepfather, a drug addict who has been acting as Harlan's dupe, shoots Quinn. The police arrive and shoot the old man, after which Peggy and Joe begin a new life together.

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Count Oudoff, a fortune-hunting European nobleman, marries a wealthy American widow and brings his new wife and her pretty young daughter Lianne back to Paris. When word gets around that Lianne stands to inherit a good deal of money when her rich grandmother passes away, every gold-digging nobleman in Paris sets his sights on her, but she's waiting for a special "prince" to sweep her away. When her distant cousin Basil arrives from Amerca on a mission from her grandmother to investigate the young girl's situation, Lianne believes that she might have finally found the "prince" she has sought.