The Essential Watchlist that Capture the Essence of The Price of Happiness: Cult Guide

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Young Janet Osborne is stuck in a loveless marriage; her only source of pleasure is her daughter. Janet always dreamed of a career on the stage but never had the chance. One day she meets theatrical agent Geoffrey Allen and decides to try her luck at becoming an actress. But when her husband Mark finds out, he orders her out of the house and keeps their daughter Marcia. Her acting career sputters to a halt also, and Geoffrey takes advantage of her situation to make her his mistress. Years later she finds out that Marcia has become an actress--and has also become involved with Geoffrey.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Poor Olga Dolan works as a public stenographer at a fashionable New York hotel. After she charms the Honorable Cyril Ralston and introduces him to her uncouth father and squalid home, Ralston persuades her to accept a suite of rooms in a hotel, promising he will marry her "some time." When Ralston returns to England, Olga vows revenge. She goes there working as the secretary to Lady Constance Bromley, and once there, learns that Ralston is her employer's son and also that he is married. Interested in the Duke of Rutledge, Olga makes Ralston introduce her to him. After Ralston becomes obnoxious in his advances, Olga becomes the duke's private secretary, impressing him when she flirts with a Spanish diplomat to make him sign some papers. When the duke's insane wife escapes from her secluded room in the castle, Olga stops her from killing the duke. The duchess' subsequent fatal heart attack brought on by intense jealousy allows Olga to marry the duke.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Patience Hilton is convinced by her father's kindly head bookkeeper, Magnus "Magpie" MacDonald, that one can only be happy by living the simple life. However, she fails to convince her millionaire parents and her boyfriend, Hale Thompson, to give up their lives of luxury. Believing it would be better for her father to work for his money rather than simply worrying about it, Patience and Magpie rob his safe, assisted by their butler, Dugan, an ex-burglar. Two men disguised as policemen intercept Patience and Magpie, chloroform them, and steal all Mr. Hilton's securities. Patience is cured of her "back to nature" beliefs when the family begins a life of toil and drudgery. Hale tracks the crooks and finds that they were led by Dugan. When the money is recovered, Hale proposes to a changed Patience.

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

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

When retired merchant J. T. Manly is murdered, his son James, with whom he had quarreled, is arrested and finally convicted through the testimony of Manly's valet Aguinaldo. Shortly before James's execution, Sidney Holmes reveals to retired criminologist Martin Cross that on the night of the murder, he saw Aguinaldo commit the crime through the bedroom window of his friend Robert West's wife Helen. Although his presence in Helen's room was innocent, he refuses to make a public statement that might besmirch her honor. With this knowledge, Cross hires a fake spiritualist to terrorize Aguinaldo with contrivances of ghosts, skeletons and mysterious faces. The ruse is successful, and Aguinaldo confesses that he killed Manly to avenge his mother, whom the merchant had wed and later abandoned. Robert dies, leaving Helen free to marry Sidney.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Robert Worthing marries his sweetheart, Madeline Francis, but the wedding is ruined by his mother, who announces that because she and her parents are insane, he possesses tainted genes. Fearing that he will pass the disease on to his children, the bridegroom avoids his new wife and locks the door between their rooms. Deeply in love with Madeline, whom he is forced to love only as a sister, Robert considers suicide, but all ends well when the young man learns that he was adopted.

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

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Lea Montrose (Virginia Pearson) marries Dorian Vandeveer (Hugh Thompson), but soon finds that he is a drunk. Dorian tries without success to reform and Lea abandons any hopes for her marriage. Instead she joins a cult headed by Dr. Studholm Charters (Thurlow Bergen). One of Lea's former boyfriends, Jack Harley (Edwin Stanley), returns to town, having become wealthy, and he and Lea rekindle their relationship. Lea has a baby, which inspires Dorian to once again attempt to give up drinking. Dr. Charters, however, suspects that Jack, rather than Dorian, is the child's father, and demands that Lea submit to him in return for his silence. Dorian learns of Charters' demand, gets drunk and kills him, then commits suicide. See "The Fox Plan of Photoplay Writing" by Vera Casparay, ghostwriting for Charles Donald Fox.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Marcia Calhoun, a talented but penniless singer, leaves her Southern home hoping to study opera in New York. Her instructor, Professor Didot, promises her a contract on the condition that she receive formal training in Italy for one year. Didot introduces Marcia to millionaire Philip Bradley, who offers to pay for her studies if she will accompany him to Italy as his mistress. Desperate for money, she agrees, but he abandons her several months later. Marcia continues her studies, and on the night of her highly-successful debut in Paris, Robert Carroll, with whom she has fallen deeply in love, proposes. When Marcia confesses her past, however, he deserts her, whereupon she vows to ruin Philip and his family. Because Philip has died, she seeks her revenge through his brother John, who comes to love her so dearly that he reveals all of his business secrets to her. Through dealings with his rivals, Marcia ruins John, but he proposes anyway, promising to right his brother's wrong.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Life or Honor? perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Judith Atherstone goes to her father's South African diamond fields not knowing that he is nearly broke. Atherstone's wealthy neighbor, Ox Lanyon, entrusts his diamond fields to Atherstone while he attempts to rescue prospectors endangered by a Zulu uprising. Believing Ox to be dead, Atherstone, encouraged by his engineer Caton Cooper, who loves Judith, uses Ox's wealth to keep Judith in luxuries. When Ox returns demanding his fortune, Atherstone and Cooper fight him, and, although they are bested, they retain Ox's wealth. For revenge, Ox takes Judith to the desert, where, near death, she is given the small amount of water he finds. After they are saved, Judith realizes his sacrifice and falls in love. When Cooper finds them, Judith saves Ox by saying they are married. She returns to her sick father's house where Cooper dies a coward when they are attacked by Kaffirs. After soldiers brought by Ox quell the revolt, Ox forgives Atherstone and marries Judith.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Sam Harris, a black worker on the sugar plantation of Hugh Houston in Puerto Rico, is crippled for life when Houston beats him. Huston silences Harris with money and promises him a monthly allotment for the rest of his life. Houston's secretary, Franklin Harvey, is puzzled by Harris' regular appearances at Houston's office. When Houston's daughter Sybil, who lives in Boston, visits her father, she so enchants Harvey that he becomes fiercely determined to marry her. Sybil repulses Franklin's attentions, and after her father dies, Franklin tries to prevent her marriage to the man she loves, John Carter, by falsifying Houston's marriage certificate, substituting the name of Harris' mother for that of Sybil's own. When he threatens to reveal to John that Sybil is part black, she orders him to leave but is later haunted by the fear that her child will be born black. Franklin angrily tells his story to John, and while the two men fight, Sybil rushes into the next room and apparently shoots herself. Remorseful at the thought that Sybil killed herself because of him, Franklin confesses his lie, but Sybil appears at the door unharmed and says she knew he was lying.