Top-Tier Alternatives Exploring the Legacy of The Oakdale Affair: C...

Dir: Oscar Apfel

Trader Ned Stewart's father Graehme was unjustly accused of adultery and killed. Ned sets out to avenge his father but is captured and send on "la longue traverse," the long journey to death. Virginia saves Ned, and the villain confesses Graehme's innocence on his deathbed.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

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

Ted Ewing, a young New Yorker, is the guardian of Nora Hildreth, with whom he is in love. He invests her fortune of $50,000 and an equal amount of his own money (constituting almost his entire property) in a stock exchange speculation. When this speculation apparently fails he seeks to reimburse the girl by taking out a life insurance policy in her favor and then killing himself. But, as the policy has a clause invalidating it in case of suicide, he has to arrange an "accidental death" for himself, and, to this end, enters into an arrangement with the chief of the S.S.S., a blackmailing society which has already threatened his life. The humorous complications really begin when it develops that the money has not been lost but doubled, so that Ted, instead of wishing to die, has every reason imaginable for wishing to live. It is, however, almost impossible to break his sworn pact with the S.S.S. and his own Japanese valet, to whom he gave the money to pay for his death, refuses to divert the money from the one use to which it has been pledged. The manner in which Ted manages to escape from his own plots against his own life, and the details of his romance with Nora form the concluding episodes of this highly amusing photodrama.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

Daniel Esmond, an English writer, discovers he has a half-sister who is a gypsy. He joins a gypsy clan to find her, and eventually becomes chief of the clan.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

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

Steve Baird travels West, and with miner Mike Reardon, buys an abandoned mine called The Skyrocket. Hoping to raise money to cover his notes, Steve goes to New York where he meets forger Jackson Ives. Ives gives Steve $50,000 in counterfeit money for stock in the mine just before the notes are due. When Grace Tyler and other wealthy friends see the money they also buy stock, believing that Steve is a success. Meanwhile, neighboring mine owner James Morgan discovers that The Skyrocket contains gold, and he sets off an explosion, hoping to kill Mike before he discovers it. Instead of killing Mike, the explosion uncovers the gold and everyone becomes wealthy, including Ives who now has the money to make his forgeries good. At the end, Steve and Grace are married with Ives as best man.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

A gypsy girl brought up by a Scottish Lord is arrested for rioting escapes jail and refugee with a young Minister who falls in love with her.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

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

"Cameo" Kirby, so called because of his fondness for cameos, is the son of a New Orleans plantation owner who dies insolvent. When the plantation and slaves are sold at auction, Cameo's favorite body-servant is bought at auction by one of his father's friends, John Randall. John and Kirby head north on a Mississippi river boat where Randall meets Colonel Moreau. There he loses heavily on a wager and consents to a game of poker hoping to get back his losses. Kirby, through his friendship with another gambler, is adept at the manipulation of cards and suspects that Moreau is not an honest player. He joins the game and soon Randall, having lost all of his money, wagers the old homestead. Kirby wins the hand and Moreau accuses him of cheating while Randall, unappreciative of the fact that Kirby won the hand to keep Randall's estate falling into Moreau's hands, shoots himself. When his body is taken ashore, Kirby meets Randall's daughter, Adele, and instantly falls in love with her. But Kirby is on very shaky ground as he is known as the man who caused Adele's father to commit suicide, and she treats him to some southern disdain. Her brother, Tom, vows to take revenge on Kirby. He and Moreau have an un-witnessed duel and Colonel is shot dead by Kirby, who is somewhat of a dead shot among his many other talents. But Tom takes the gun from Moreau's hand so it will appear he was unarmed. Kirby, slave-owner becomes a fugitive from justice. This also deals a blow to his courtship of Adele. But, a true-blue southern gentleman such as Kirby should be able to win the day, sooner or later.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

Bob Van Buren's rescue of an upper-class Turkish girl and her duenna in Constantinople when they are waylaid by robbers paves the way for a romance between them. The romance progresses rapidly despite the hullabaloo raised by Demetra's father and by the Turk fiancé he is trying to force upon her; but the very thought of a girl, so highly educated, so gifted with needle and loom, so famously graceful as a dancer ending up in a harem instead of a respectable home, drives Bob Van Buren to desperation. At length he persuades Demetra to elope with him to America, where Demetra could be married at his mother's in New York. Getting wind of it, the malicious Osman hires a band of ruffians who make away with Bob Van Buren on the very eve of departure. With her young American mysteriously vanished, and the day of her now-all-the-more-odious wedding to Osman drawing near, Demetra can stand it no longer, and taking her duenna, flees to a cousin's in New York on the P. and O. boat on which Bob had reserved sailings. Osman pursues the little refugee, corners her in New York, and with oriental cunning sets a trap into which Demetra walks blindly. Having her in his toils again Osman summons a second Turkish priest and is just forcing Demetra to her knees before him when the door bursts open and in rushes Bob Van Buren, who had finally escaped the dungeon in Constantinople to which he had been consigned. He routes Osman and takes Demetra to his mother's. Mrs. Van Buren suggested that the lovers wait until September, but their hearts were set on June. And so, as you may very well imagine, June it was.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

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

A fantasy from Ibsen's verse drama. Ne'er-do-well and braggart Peer Gynt has many adventures in varied countries, making and losing money, gaining fortune at others' expense, until he finds salvation in the love of Solveig.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

Nicknamed "Wild Olive," Miriam Strange learns that her mother was an Indian, she moves to a hut near an Allegheny lumber camp. Norrie Ford, fresh from college, visits his uncle, the bullying boss of the camp, and meets Miriam. After his uncle is murdered with a knife found hidden under Norrie's mattress, Norrie is sentenced to die. He escapes a guard and, after staying a night in Miriam's hut, leaves for Buenos Aires with her letter of introduction for employment. Although he vowed to marry her, after his letters to "Wild Olive" return undelivered, Norrie, sporting a beard and an assumed name, becomes engaged to Evie Wayne, Miriam's stepsister. When Norrie is sent to be his firm's New York manager, he meets Miriam again. She sacrifices her love and agrees to marry lawyer Charles Conquest, if he will prove Norrie's innocence. After Evie learns about Norrie's past and breaks the engagement, the murderer makes a deathbed confession. Conquest releases Miriam when he sees that she loves Norrie.

Dir: Oscar Apfel

The defense attorney who was unable to obtain the acquittal of an innocent young man concocts a complicated and diabolical scheme to get revenge on the prosecutor.