Deep Archive Finds in the Vein of The More Excellent Way: Cult Guide

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

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

While in New York seeking work, Cynthia, a young English girl, meets Bruce Crittenden and George Rhode who introduce her to Madame Savarin, a wealthy woman seeking a companion for a sea voyage. She hires Cynthia, and while at sea, Cynthia discovers that Bruce is the ship's purser. Cynthia's father was a famous wireless expert who taught her how to read code, which enables her to overhear a plot to sink the ship and steal Mrs. Savarin's jewels. Soon after, the crew mutinies, and while Rhode and Bruce fight the crew, Cynthia sounds the alarm. As he is attempting to foil the jewel thieves, Bruce falls overboard, and Cynthia swims to his rescue with the jewels strapped to her back. They are rescued by a government patrol boat and taken back to New York where Cynthia and Bruce are married.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

"Richard the Brazen" is the romance of a modern knight who has all the flourish and daring of the knights of old, although he happened to be born in Texas in the 20th century. While traveling with his chum, an English peer, an accident forces him to assume his friend's title, valet, and monocle and leads to a meeting with a girl whom he had worshipped from afar in England. He is obliged to court her under false pretenses, and the complications growing out of this false situation culminate in a stirring fight with a burglar in which the true state of affairs is revealed and Richard restored to his rightful title as scion of a Texas family. - New York Dramatic Mirror, July 28, 1917.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

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

George and Alice Roydant live in the country with her wealthy uncle Nicholas Barrable, who wants to keep them from the city's temptations. After they become bored and move to New York, George neglects Alice as he successfully speculates on the market. He becomes involved with Attlie Damuron, an adventuress who soon begins to blackmail him. After George, upset at his situation, angrily rebukes Alice, she decides to accept the advances of Lord Sulgrave, a guest in their home. She sends him a note to come to her bedroom, but when he knocks, she regains her self-respect and refuses to allow him to enter. Sulgrave forces his way in, and after struggling with her, accidentally drinks her sleeping potion and dies. After George confesses his trouble with Attlie, Alice makes it appear that Sulgrave poisoned himself in his own room. Finally, Barrable arrives and helps them financially, they return to the country, and vow never to stray again.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

Hagar, a gypsy woman, is determined that her child, Eve, shall have a better chance for happiness than her wandering life has afforded her. She leaves her baby on the doorstep of a Quaker family, the Fothergills and little Eve is brought up as their daughter. The ways of the Quakers pall upon Eve when she grows up. She sees merrymaking in the home of the Brandons one evening, and lured by the lights, peers in at the window. The gay crowd notice the Quaker girl, draw her into the house, and amuse themselves by dressing her up in finery. She confesses her loneliness to Arthur Brandon, who tells her of the fascinations of a great city. As their friendship grows, he asks her to marry him. She consents, and for a time revels in gaiety. But it finally becomes clear to her that there is no real happiness in such a life. Brandon is a factory owner, and he is conscienceless in his treatment of his workers. Eve is humiliated by the denunciations of her husband that appear in the newspapers. He also drinks heavily. Richard Blair, a young philanthropist, starts an investigation. While he is visiting Brandon's factory an Italian child, Rosa, is blinded by an accident. Rosa is granted a miserable pittance in compensation for the accident, and Blair tries to force Brandon to do more for her. He refuses. Blair finds work for Beppo, Rosa's father, and sends the child to an institute for the blind. Eve admires the nobility of Blair's nature. Brandon, misunderstanding the friendship of the two, insults her in the presence of Blair, who knocks him down. Eve offers to go away with Blair. He says he loves her. but he will not take her unlawfully. She will not return to her husband, so she goes to the city to fight her own way. She soon finds out, however, that she is unfit for the rough work she undertakes. Deciding that suicide is her only way out, she goes to a park lake intending to drown herself. She hears a girl calling out in distress, and sees the child, who is blind, walking toward the lake. Eve goes to her and finds it is Rosa, who has wandered away from the other children. Eve takes her back to the Institute. Beppo has never ceased to seek for revenge against Brandon. He follows him on board his motorboat, and when the boat is well away from shore he attacks Brandon and tries to kill him. An oil lamp is overturned. It sets fire to the boat, and both men, fearfully burned, sink to the bottom of the bay locked in a death grasp. Blair goes to Eve and tells her the news of her husband's death, saying that the way is now open for them to marry. But Eve's heart is bound up in the welfare of the blind children among whom she has cast her lot. She accepts a position as an attendant at the institute, to give her life to the little ones through whom she has at last discovered the secret of true happiness.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

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

Dr. Rundel has devoted his life to developing a formula that will revolutionize the medical world. Fearing that the romance of his assistant, John Stedman, with Martha Wainwright will impede the progress of the formula, Rundell forces Stedman to sign an agreement stipulating that he will postpone marriage until after the completion of the formula. After Rundel's death, Stedman is bound by the agreement, and Martha's father insists that his daughter wed wealthy Allen Cosgrove. When Martha sends Stedman a note that he must give her up, he suffers a breakdown. Martha comes to Stedman's aid and agrees to live with him, thus creating a scandal, which causes a confrontation between Cosgrove and Stedman. The problem is resolved as Dr. Rundel awakens from his dream and destroys the agreement.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

A prologue introduces author Charles K. Harris at his window, viewing a crowd that has gathered around an ambulance. Harris says to his clerk, "Only an abandoned child," and then dictates the following story. Richard Hartley, a millionaire's son, marries Vera Walton, a musical comedy dancing girl, while he is intoxicated at a party. Richard regrets this rash act when he becomes sober, and because he is under twenty-one, his father is able to have the marriage annulled. Richard goes abroad, during which time Vera gives birth to their son, whom she then deserts. When Richard returns, he weds his former fiancée, a respectable girl from his own set. Childless, the couple adopts Victor, Vera's child, unaware of his parentage. Twenty years later, Victor, a physician at a New York hospital, is engaged to Muriel Worth. Meanwhile, Vera, who has trained to be a nurse to be near Victor, is recognized by Richard's father, at the hospital after an accident. When a rival for Muriel's affection tells the Board of Governors of an exclusive club that Victor is trying to join that his father's a crook, Vera discloses her secret to them but keeps silent to Victor. Richard, whose wife died years earlier, learns about Vera's devotion, and marries her.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

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

From an original trade paper advertisement: "The story of a girl who for months was in perpetual peril; on land, on sea, everywhere, Orient, Occident, and the Antipodes. And because of that peril and her narrow escapes it is always exciting, and will furnish gobs of entertainment for your patrons."

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

Clara Weston, on her way back East to accept a secretarial position, is delayed along the road and forced to spend the evening at a frontier hotel and dance hall. During the night, while a fight is in progress in the saloon downstairs, Clara is raped by a drunken surveyor who enters her room with the belief that it is the apartment of a dance hall girl with whom he had arranged a clandestine rendezvous. The next morning, Clara resumes her trip to the city where she learns that she is pregnant. By coincidence, she becomes secretary to Rex Fenton, her assailant, but does not recognize him because he has shaved his beard. They fall in love and are married, and Fenton unknowingly adopts his own child. Later, Fenton discovers Clara's past and renounces her for not being truthful with him. However, when a scar on his wrist inflicted by his victim betrays that Fenton was Clara's attacker, he begs her forgiveness, which Clara grants for the sake of their child.

Dir: Perry N. Vekroff

Mary O'Brien, daughter of an Irish gentleman of declining fortunes, while fishing, meets Ernest Randal, who is trespassing on her father's land. Randal is the son of an English baronet and his conversation so charms Mary that she invites him to dinner. The next day, while out hunting deer with her father, a poacher mistakes Randal's peaked cap for a deer's antlers, and shoots him through the shoulder. Mary nurses Randal, who is taken to her home. They fall in love and Mary gives her heart to him without reserve, and it is with difficulty that he forces himself to leave to complete his course in surgery. Norah, the old family servant, suspects the truth. Mary confesses to her father, and with difficulty restrains him from taking her lover's life when he returns after completing his college course. At first, Randal says he cannot marry her at that time, and she defends him. However, overcome by her generosity, Randal asks her to marry him, and she finally consents on account of the injustice to the child, which her refusal would cause. She leaves, however, immediately after the marriage. After her boy is born, Mary obtains employment in a cotton mill, becomes prominent in welfare work among the employees, and forms an uplift club, which is cited all over Ireland as a model of its kind. Her employer, O'Farrell, also promotes her to a position of trust, and asks her to be his wife, but on account of her boy, she refuses to divorce her husband. Randal visits her and asks her to return to him, but she declines, reminding him of the fact that he has been wasting his life. Determined to win her respect, he enlists and goes to war. O'Farrell also enlists and leaves Mary in charge of the mill. At the front Randal saves O'Farrell from bleeding to death when his arm is torn off by a shell. Randal later is shot, and reported dead. O'Farrell returns to Mary with the news that Randal's brother has also been killed, and that her boy is the Earl of Randal; and Mary at last realizes what her husband means to her. A great joy comes when she learns that Randal is alive, although temporarily blinded, and she nurses him while he is recovering his sight. O'Farrell once more goes to the front, saying he has one good arm left and is needed on the field. Life now seems perfect for Marv, and her happiness is deepened when her husband gives her the deed to her old house, which had been sold to strangers when her father died and she begins with deep joy her new life as Lady Randal.