Underground Favorites Mirroring the Impact of The Man from Nowhere:...

Dir: Henry Otto

Jack and Blanny Wheeler live in the apartment above Laura and Billy Bartlett. Jack likes to stay out late and play poker, but covers by telling his wife that he attends meetings of the Mystic Shrine society. Laura is carrying on a dalliance with Philip Evans. One night Jack goes to play poker and leaves Blanny with the Bartletts. Laura goes out with Philip. Blanny and Billy commiserate about their loneliness, and concoct a scheme to arouse their spouses' jealousies. They taste various liquors, become intoxicated, and fall asleep. Jack, Laura, and Philip return. Jack and Laura both threaten divorce until the explanations are made, and the couples are reunited.

Dir: Henry Otto

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

When oil magnate Thomas Waring receives a letter from his old friend, Mrs. Juliet Smith, suggesting that his beloved daughter Maida spend her vacation at Mrs. Smith's island home, Waring encourages Maida to accept as he has to go East on business. After Mrs. Smith supposedly gets Maida, Waring receives a call from the real Mrs. Smith, who says that Maida has left with an impostor. On the island, Maida lives luxuriously, unaware that her hosts are sending her father ransom notes. She meets Gilbert Spear, camping out, and they fall in love. After receiving no response from Waring, the kidnappers reveal their scheme to Maida and demand that she write to her father. They lock her in when she refuses, but she escapes and leaves the island with Gilbert. Although they are overtaken by the criminals, Waring and the police pull up and the gang is taken into custody, leaving Gilbert and Maida free to pursue their romance.

Dir: Henry Otto

Venus sends Cupid to earth to find if romance still exists there. He finds Moira and Peggy, a fisherman's daughters, who become entangled in the amorous pursuits of an artist and a fisherman. Cupid returns to Venus with his report.

Dir: Henry Otto

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

John spies his girlfriend embracing his brother. Stunned, John deposits the family's money and leaves the country. Years later he returns to find his brother dead, the plantation in ruins, and that he is suspected of stealing the money.

Dir: Henry Otto

Rosalind Chalmers, a New York society girl, goes on an unannounced visit to her friends, the Witherbees, at the Thousand Islands, primarily for the purpose of escaping the unwelcome attention of Reginald Williams. She misses the last boat to their island, and is taken over in the decrepit motorboat of an interesting young man known as Sam. Sam is really William Kellogg, heir to the Davidson millions. During the absence of his uncle, Henry Davidson, Kellogg has broken a handsome vase, and decides to earn the money himself to pay for it. So as One-Cylinder Sam he begins to carry passengers between the islands. On the way to the Witherbee island Kellogg's motor goes dead. Rosalind's hobby is motors, and she puts the engine in working order in no time. When they reach the island the family has retired for the night. Rosalind tries to climb in a window, but sets off a burglar alarm, and runs to escape the people who come to investigate. Startled by shots, she takes a small boat, and goes out into the river. She hears more shots, this time for Davidson Island. From angry voices she learns that the supposed burglars are there, too. Two motorboats set out. Soon the engine of one goes dead, and Rosalind goes to help. Kellogg, whom she knows as Sam, and whom she things is a burglar, is in the boat. But in spite of this she starts his engine for him, on account of the strange attraction he has for her, and aids his escape from the pursuing boat. Rosalind and Kellogg thereafter see a great deal of each other in the simple life of the islands. At a hotel dance he appears in his evening clothes, and after getting Rosalind to dance with him, induces her to go for a short walk in the moonlight. He tells her he is madly in love with her, and that he is going to marry her, with her consent or without it. She still thinks he is a burglar, and is frightened. He picks her up and carries her to his boat, but in mid-stream the boat strikes a submerged rock and sinks. Kellogg swims ashore with Rosalind to his uncle's island. He offers to break into the house and get some dry clothes for her and though still thinking he is a burglar she consents. Kellogg arrays himself in fresh clothes, and is greeted joyfully by his uncle. Kellogg hands him a purse containing the money for the vase, earned by his efforts as "One-Cylinder Sam," and introduces him to Rosalind, who is relieved to know that the man she is going to marry is not a burglar.

Dir: Henry Otto

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

King Rudolph of Rugaria sends his son, Prince Boris, to America to marry into wealth so that the country can recover from its financial difficulties. Rich Mrs. Hanway, eager to have her daughter Althea become a princess, takes her with Boris to Rugaria. Meanwhile, Rupert Danza, a Columbia University student, is told by a mysterious envoy that he is needed in Rugaria to lead a revolution. Although he laughs at first, he follows, when he learns that his sweetheart Althea has gone there. While Rupert's knowledge of democracy inspires the revolutionaries, his sword play enables him to rescue Althea from Boris. After an anarchist wounds the king, Rupert is arrested, but as a firing squad prepares to execute him, Countess Olga reveals that he is really the king's son who was kidnapped as a child and sent to America to absorb democracy for the coming revolution. After Rudolph dies, Rupert declines the crown, but is elected president of the newly-created republic. Althea then becomes his First Lady.

Dir: Henry Otto

After her mother dies, a young girl is sent with her little sister to live with their aunt and uncle, who treat her terribly. The aunt and uncle run a show at the Panama exposition and turn her into a human butterfly.

Dir: Henry Otto

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

Dick Warrington, a successful New York dramatist, receives a visit in his apartments from Katherine Challoner, an actress whom he has "made." She shows him her engagement ring and tells him that she is soon to be married, as the stage never really fascinated her, but she refuses to tell the name of the man she is to marry. As Kate is about to leave the butler announces another caller and Dick requests her to remain in order to meet John Bennington, as he and John are great chums. Kate protests that her presence in his room so late at night might cause embarrassment and leaves to enter the butler's pantry. John finds a pair of white gloves which Kate has left behind her. He put them in his pocket surreptitiously. The two men sit down to smoke and chat, and John tells Dick that he is going to be married, and wishes him to act as his best man, but must withhold the name of his fiancée for the present. After John's departure Kate comes out of the pantry and Dick helps her to look for her gloves. Kate tells him that John Bennington is the man she is to marry, and that he bought the gloves for her that very morning. Failing to find her gloves, and realizing that Bennington had probably taken them away with him, Kate falls in a faint. The next morning Dick escorts Kate out of the apartment. The janitor sees them enter a cab and drive off, fully aware that the actress has spent the night in Warrington's flat. Some days after Dick returns to his native town, Herculaneum. John Bennington's marriage to the actress, Kat Challoner, has caused considerable gossip in Herculaneum. One of the scandal mongers says, "That actress and Richard Warrington have been very intimate, and you know Warrington's reputation." The honeymooners return a day sooner than expected. Shortly after their arrival Dick meets Senator Henderson, the boss of the Republican party, who tells him that he wants him to run for mayor of the town at the fall election. McQuade, the boss of the local Democrats, is determined that Mayor Donnelly must have another term. At the Republican convention Warrington is nominated for mayor. After Dick's nomination McQuade sends Bolles, one of his henchmen, to New York to dig up some "dope" on Warrington's metropolitan career. A month later Bolles returns from New York and informs McQuade that he got what he went after, as the janitor he interviewed there had told him about Kate passing the night with Richard Warrington in his apartment. McQuade keeps this information as a trump card until the night before election. Then he goes to the editor of the local Democratic paper, which he controls, and forces him to publish this bit of scandal in the election day issue. Pattie Bennington's sister reads the scandal and rushes to the conservatory to find her mother and Kate. When Kate reads the article she becomes excited. Dick, who has meanwhile read the attack on him, comes over and meets Kate in the parlor. Dick tells her that John must be made acquainted with the truth. Kate protests, fearing that it will cause her to lose her husband's love, but Dick throws open the parlor doors and, as John enters, shows him the article. After reading the scandalous attack carefully, John, who is a large-minded man, emphatically declares that he does not believe it. Then, pulling out Kate's white gloves from his pocket, he turns to her and adds: "Even with this evidence I never doubted you." Dick rushes to McQuade's office and insists on knowing who is responsible for the scandal. Bolles comes forward and says that he unearthed it in New York. Dick promptly knocks him down and says defiantly: "Miss Challoner did remain in my apartment one night, but there was a nurse and doctor in attendance until I escorted her home next morning." After Dick has returned to his library he learns that Donnelly, his opponent, has the plurality vote in nine districts. Later Pattie phones to the editor of the Republican paper and is told that Warrington has the plurality of over 700 in fifteen districts heard from so far, which assures his election. Pattie then calls up Dick and informs him that he is elected. Dick embraces Pattie and they walk, hand in hand, down the path as the scene fades out.

Dir: Henry Otto

Glory Moore, a mischievous girl who is the despair of her mother but the "angel child" of her father, is sent away to boarding school, where she continues her devilish pranks. Soon after her departure, her father discovers that he is missing an important letter containing evidence that will send a business rival to jail. Glory, who has wrapped candy in the letter, throws it on the floor, and it is picked up by the daughter of the accused man. Glory learns of her mistake, and with the help of Richard Grant, a young lawyer whom she met at school, she retrieves the letter from the businessman's home. When Richard proposes to Glory, she decides to forego the dubious pleasures of finishing school to become his wife.

Dir: Henry Otto

The story begins in the realm of Queen Unda, mistress of the under-seas, surrounded by her nymphs, sylphs and mermaids, who disport themselves on the sands and in the waters of the deep. Berthelda, daughter of a fisherman and his devoted wife, has been stolen by the mermaids one day when the child is playing on the sands. Queen Unda rules that little Berthelda shall be left to roam in the Enchanted Forest, because her parents have taken fishes from the ocean, greatly to the annoyance of Unda and Neptune. Undine's mother has committed sin with a mortal and to atone for this her little baby, Undine, is taken to the shore near the fisherman's cottage, to be discovered by the fisherman and his wife. It is Undine's mission on earth to marry a mortal, and thus atone for the sins committed by her mother in loving a handsome young huntsman, whose untimely death likewise robs Undine's mother of her own life. Undine is welcomed by the fisherman and his wife, who consider she has been sent by the gods to take the place of their little Berthelda. Fifteen years pass. Berthelda has been adopted by the Duke and Duchess and among those who pay her court at the Castle is Huldbrand, the bravest of knights. To test his love, Berthelda sends Huldbrand into the Enchanted Forest and bids him return with proof that he had explored its wonders. Coming to the fisherman's cottage, Huldbrand meets Undine, immediately falls in love with her and they are married by a shipwrecked priest, whom Undine has rescued from the sea. Going with his bride to the Castle, there is great rejoicing. At the celebration in honor of Huldbrand's marriage there appears a messenger from Queen Unda who tells Undine her earthly mission is fulfilled and she returns to the waters under the sea. Huldbrand is reconciled to Lady Berthelda and the story ends.