The Essential Watchlist that Capture the Essence of The Michigan Ki...

Dir: Irvin Willat

A widely respected deep-sea diver is approached by a ring of con artists who want him to be the front man for a phony scheme to recover gold from sunken ships. When he refuses, they send a sexy young woman to seduce his son, and then blackmail the father into going along with their scheme.

Dir: William Parke

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

Bruce Wendell, the son of West Virginia coal mine owner James Wendell, graduates from West Point and prepares to lead a fighting unit to the front during World War I. As his father lies dying, however, he convinces Bruce to remain at home and guard the mine. Bruce's fiancée Ann Blair assumes that he is a coward and breaks off their engagement, but her brother Bobbie remains Bruce's loyal friend. Meyer, a German agent, persuades railroad president Parrish to refuse to transport Wendell's coal, but when Bruce adamantly refuses to close the mine, the spy's men decide to blow it up. While Ann is being abducted by Meyer, Bobbie is buried in an explosion at the mine. Bruce rescues Bobbie and then sends a plea to Lieutenant Parrish to rescue Ann. Meyer and his gang are captured and Ann renews her vow of love to Bruce.

Dir: Robert N. Bradbury

A simple country girl, brutally mistreated by her stepfather, awakens first the sympathy, then the love, of The Boy. The Spider, who lusts after The Girl, makes a bargain with the stepfather and takes her to the city where, kept prisoner, she is soon broken in health and spirit. Cast out and near death, she is taken in by The Boy. Following the demise of The Spider, The Boy takes her to church, where he prays, and after many hours she is restored to health.

Dir: Edgar Jones

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

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.

Dir: Irvin Willat

Alain de Montcalm is the son of a French trading post proprietor. When a murder and kidnapping occur, Alain pursues the abducted girl and her captor across the far northern wasteland of ice.

Dir: Irvin Willat

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

Nance Pelot is bravely trying to support herself and her father Joe, the town drunk, by playing piano in an unsavory roadside inn owned by Larry Shayne. Chet Todd, the son of a shop owner, is in love with her, but her reputation has been sullied by her profession, so Chet's mother disapproves of her. Nance inherits a small farm from her mother, and when Shayne discovers that the property is valuable, he plots to cheat her out of her inheritance. After a series of misadventures, including a revival meeting and a blinding snowstorm, Joe stops drinking and Chet rescues the farm from Shayne. When Nance sells the property, she gains a respectable income, as well as the respect of the community and her future mother-in-law.

Dir: Irvin Willat

Marie Dubois, deeply in love with young lawyer Claude Lescuyer, entrusts her honor to him, but shortly before the birth of their child, he abandons her. In order to legitimize her daughter Claudine, Marie weds Flambon, the brutal owner of a Paris café. Eighteen years later, Flambon orders Claudine to work in the café, where she falls in love with Gaston, a waiter. Because Flambon owes a large sum of money to Jean, the café's former proprietor, he promises him the hand of his daughter in marriage. Claudine refuses to part with Gaston, which so enrages Flambon that he beats the girl and nearly kills Marie. To save her mother's life, Claudine shoots her stepfather and is subsequently tried for murder. The prosecutor, Claude Lescuyer, learns to his shame that the defendant is his own child, and in the courtroom, he names himself as the guilty man. The jury exonerates Claudine, and she is united with Gaston.

Dir: Irvin Willat

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

Peter Kennedy, a pernicious landlord who desires his tenant, Nora McCree, realizes that the only way to possess Nora is to eliminate her husband Patrick. To accomplish this, Kennedy arranges a fight between Patrick and another man, in which the latter is badly wounded. Patrick is told that his opponent has died, and at Kennedy's suggestion, joins the army and goes to Africa to fight the Boers. In his absence, Kennedy, unable to win Nora by fair means, does everything in his power to make her feel the pinch of poverty and thus capitulate to him. Things are at their worst for the McCree family when little Eileen, after listening to fairy tales told to her by the Irishman Flynn, dreams of her father and finds him the next day, unconscious under a large tree after having been waylaid by Kennedy upon his return home. With Patrick's return, Kennedy's plans are dashed, and the McCree family is united once again.

Dir: Irvin Willat

When cowboy Nick McCredie notices in a second-hand book an inscription to "Emily, the prettiest girl in school," he writes to her and learns that she is a lonely Eastern farm girl living with her grandmother. Instead of sending his own picture to her, Nick encloses a photo of his handsome friend Pen Walton. After Nick sees Walton stealing two horses, Nick agrees to keep quiet, when Walton promises to reform. Meanwhile, Emily's grandmother dies, and her new guardian tries to force her to marry him. She writes to Nick, who proposes by letter. Nick meets her, but identifies himself as "Andy," and when she says she would be disappointed if Nick was not as handsome as his picture, he shows her the way to Walton, and rides off alone. After Walton rustles another horse and plants Nick's glove as evidence, he abducts Emily. She escapes, and riding the stolen horse, she leads the rest to the ranch in time to stop Nick's hanging. After the real identities are revealed, Nick and Emily marry.

Dir: Edward LeSaint

When famous opera singer Elinore Duane undergoes an operation on her throat, she has a series of ether-induced visions. In one, she is transported to ancient Rome where she appears as a much-admired woman in love with Paul, a young heretic, and at odds with Lutor, the high priest. To save her love, she poisons Lutor with her ring. After several other visions which involve variations on this love triangle, Elinore awakens to discover that Lutor is actually her doctor, Sascha Jaccard, and that Paul is the son of a friend who has come to visit the recovering prima donna.