Hand-Picked Alternatives for Fans of The Marriage of Molly-O: Cult ...

Dir: Paul Powell

While covering night court for a newspaper, a reporter falls in love with a woman arrested on a prostitution charge. Soon after they are married, however, he catches her with Dan O'Sullivan, the publisher of the newspaper. Although the reporter had always believed his wife innocent of the prostitution charge, he now refuses to accept that she was lured to Dan's room under false pretenses and fought desperately against the publisher's advances. As a result, the reporter leaves his wife, becomes an alcoholic, and loses his job. Then, he gets a lead on a graft story involving Dan, and ultimately discredits him. While working on the story, he also finds proof that his wife had told him the truth, and so he makes up with her, after which he gives up drinking and gets an even better newspaper job than the one he had before.

Dir: Paul Powell

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

The locale of the play is among the redwoods of California. The Nymph has grown up under the care of a mother who has forsaken civilization to live in a log house in the timber. There is a stalwart Amazon-like servant, who guards the girl jealously. The Nymph has known nothing of men's society. She is taught the ancient stories of the Greek divinities and plays hymns to these personages on her harp. But the restless girl is not content to stay at home. She runs and dances through the forest, her head filled with the wonderful stories that she has read. She gives the trees the names of the gods. One day she clasps her arms around a tree and calls on the divinity that inhabits it to appear. As the tree remains stolid to her impassioned cries, she clasps her hands and calls again for Apollo. A young hunter, who happens to have come on the scent, steps forward. The girl can hardly reconcile his hunting clothes and high boots with the picture of the half-draped Greek god. He wins her interest, however. There is a thrilling fire scene afterwards and the girl is rescued from danger and restored to her adorer.

Dir: Paul Powell

Judy's family takes in seven orphans after the orphanage is foreclosed on by a hard-hearted businesswoman.

Dir: Paul Powell

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

Susan ( Dorothy Gish ), a pretty society girl, bored with her lot in life, reads and decides to use her time and money to help the poor. She founds the Joan of Arc Mission and quickly becomes an easy mark for con men. She meets and becomes fond of Larry ( Owen Moore ), the son of a loved and respected politician. Soon Larry exposes the petty grafting that is going on and Susan almost ends their friendship. She is befriended by Jim Cardigan ( Fred J. Butler ), a saloon owner, who has evil designs upon her. Susan would like to turn his saloon into an ice cream parlor. Jim promises to do so, but uses his interest to lure her to his apartment and tries to advantage of her. When a con men runs to tell Larry that she is being attacked, he goes to rescue her and is wounded in the struggle. Susan nurses him back to health and happily wins his love.

Dir: Paul Powell

Revivalist Davids persuades Daire Vincent to elope with him. Within the year, inspired by his associates to seek a held of greater grafting possibilities, he deserts her without having made her a wife, and goes to New York, where he meets with great success. Daire has a child, and after many failures, becomes a dance hall singer to support it. In New York she is approached by Davids' confederates who ask her to help them in raiding the Mozart dive in which she works. She thus discovers Davids' present whereabouts and activities, and, taking her child, confronts him. Davids' young wife is dying, childless. The sight of his own son, whom he cannot claim, stirs him deeply and with a regenerating effect. The wife dies. Davids, insistently urged by the Purity League to do this, makes a raid on the Mozart. He is wounded. Father White, a slum worker, striving for Daire's spiritual upliftment, hears her life's story and intercedes with Davids to legitimatize the child. Davids and Daire go through a marriage ceremony. Later each is shown rising from the depth to a fuller and better knowledge of life.

Dir: Paul Powell

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

A teenage girl lives with two grizzly bears in a cave in the California Sierras and plays with rabbits and birds. When gambler Jim Hamilton and his mistress try to interest wealthy Bob Jordan in purchasing an abandoned mine in the Sierras, Jordan, mistakes the girl clothed in leaves and feathers for an animal, shoots her in the arm. He nurses the girl, who cannot speak, and she repays him with a slave-like devotion. At the mine, Hamilton remembers that fifteen years earlier, Indians attacked his home while he was away and killed his family. The wild girl, really Hamilton's daughter, remembers fleeing from the raid into the woods. Although Hamilton's mistress tries to seduce Jordan, he refuses to buy the mine. Hamilton then tries to rob Jordan at gunpoint, but the girl has buried Jordan's money belt as a prank. Jordan's anger causes her to return to her cave, but later they reconcile, and she returns the belt. After Hamilton's mistress leaves with another man, Hamilton returns to the city, and Jordan starts back with the girl following at his heels.

Dir: Paul Powell

Jess Vance and her father are homesteaders in the Northwest. For some time land-frauds "engineered" by a "ring" controlled by Senator Hoyle have been going on. Francis Ames, a lawyer, is sent by the government to investigate. The homesteaders endeavor to see Ames, but by the manipulation of Senator Hoyle are prevented from doing so, and they feel that Ames has double-crossed them. Jess boasts bravely of what she would do if she found one of the "dummies" on her claim. Ames learns that one of Hoyle's henchmen has arranged to send dummies to the timberland to "establish a residence" and cinch the ring's claim to the township where Jess lives. Ames stating that he is going east, follows the dummies. Jess meets Ames on her claim and orders him off. He refuses to leave and at the expiration of three days Jess again orders him off, and when he still refuses she shoots him, inflicting only a slight wound. Meantime his secretary, Stanley, meets Cora Abbott, a former friend of Ames. She obtains information that Ames is laid up in his cabin and reports to Hoyle. He tells her to "get something" on Ames. She goes to the woods, and to Ames' dismay insists that she has come to nurse him back to health. In the meantime Jess, feeling sorry for him, has bandaged his wound. He learns of the contempt in which he is held by the settlers. Cora, to get rid of Jess, tells her that she and Ames are engaged. Ames asks Cora to leave, which she does, after a stormy scene, but she bribes two forest scouts to burn Ames' cabin on the night the settlers have decided to burn the cabin of the jumpers. Ames, hearing of the proposed attempt to drive out the jumpers, leaves his cabin in charge of a half-breed. When Jess is told of the burning of Ames' cabin, and the finding of a charred body, she is broken-hearted, and to forget her own heartache offers to go to Portland to see if anything can be done toward the settlement of the homesteaders' wrongs. She is granted an interview with Ames, and there are two very surprised people when Ames sees his forest girl and Jess discovers that her jumper and the despised Ames are one and the same. Later she gladly gives up her homestead rights to become Ames' bride.

Dir: Paul Powell

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

Flighty Helen Halverson decides that she wants to marry Big Jim McKenzie, the boss of the logging camp her father owns, after he is temporarily blinded after he crashes his toboggan into a tree in order to avoid hitting Helen. She convinces her cousin Adele--who is actually also in love with Jim--to get him to propose. Jim's sight returns and he and Helen marry, but on the day their child is to be born, he goes blind again. Frustrated by being married to a blind man, Helen falls in love with his assistant Jean Du Bray. Complications ensue.

Dir: Paul Powell

Jimmy Conroy plans to marry Marna, stepdaughter of the wealthy Theodore Lewis, who disapproves of Jimmy as a son-in-law. His idea of a husband is Wally Henderson. Jimmy and Marna decide to elope. Jimmy cuts the tires on father's automobile and secures a rope ladder, while Marna packs up. Wally sees them eloping and informs father, who hustles him down to the train to prevent a ceremony until he can obtain injunctions and follow on the limited to serve it, Marna being under legal age. Jimmy has the marriage license, but has no time to get married before getting to the train. Wally takes the same train and lectures them on parental deference, but is shoved away. The train stops ten minutes at a way station. Jimmy rushes to the Rev. Tobias Tubbs, who is bathing. When he comes to the door, clad only in a bathrobe, Jimmy hustles him to the train just as it pulls out. Wally is on the platform and prevents them from boarding the cars. By the liberal use of money and I.O.U.'s Jimmy digs up a variegated costume for Tubbs and forces him along by hand car, mule back, afoot, and on the bumpers. After numerous adventures the limited, with father aboard, is flagged by Jimmy, who is thrown off, but pulls Tubbs up with him on the observation platform. He is about to be put off again when father pretends to be friendly. Instead he conspires with the conductor to have them arrested for stopping the limited. Meanwhile, Wally has convinced Marna that Jimmy has deserted her. She weepingly accompanies him to the hotel, there to await father's arrival. Jimmy and Tubbs are arrested when they disembark. Jimmy escapes and Tubbs is locked up. Father gives the injunction for service and has a scene with Marna. Jimmy has a hairbreadth escape from father and the officers as he attempts to get Marna from the hotel. Then he communicates by telephone and arranges for her to go to the city jail, where he will try to break in and Tubbs will marry him. Changing clothing with a sympathetic hotel maid, Marna eludes her guard and reaches the jail. Jimmy is sighted trying to break in, and a heart-breaking chase follows over rooftops, up and down the walls of buildings and over apparently unsurmountable obstacles. Mama, discouraged, is sent back to the hotel room. The search for Jimmy continues. He takes refuge on the telegraph wires overhead. Walking past several poles, he comes to one where a lineman is working. After explanations, the lineman agrees to help and makes a three-cornered telephone connection between Tubbs in jail, Marna in her room, and Jimmy on the pole. While the pursuers howl threats below, the unique wedding is under way. Father suddenly realizes it and dashes for the jail, arriving as the ceremony is completed. In conclusion, Jimmy is shown in his office settling I.O.U.'s. When alone again, he opens the vault, and out steps Marna into his arms.

Dir: Paul Powell

Grinde is a junior partner of a pottery firm. An old chemist, Benjamin Lord, discovers a formula for glazing pottery that is designed to revolutionize the industry. The chemist's grandson, David, takes a sample of the new process to Grinde, who says he will give it consideration. He delegates his foreman, Mole, to steal the formula. Mole kills the chemist, and he and Grinde frame an explosion to conceal the crime. After David refuses to sell the formula, Grinde and Mole lock him and his sweetheart in a vault with poisonous gas. Grinde then tries to kill Mole, who knows too much, and take over the firm from his elderly partner at a directors' meeting.