Essential Cult Cinema Mirroring the Impact of The Ransom: Cult Guide

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Hanlin Davis, vice-president of a bank, has been gambling in stocks, and loses heavily. While in the act of robbing the bank he is surprised by another official, and Davis kills him. Davis is arrested and his wife goes to Hastings, the District Attorney, and makes a plea in his behalf. Hastings is a corrupt official and does not hesitate to make an improper proposal to Thora. He agrees to let her husband off with a light sentence after she accepts his demands. When Davis is released from prison and learns of the sacrifice his wife has made he openly denounces her and turns her into the street. Then he gets a divorce. Ignored by all her friends and driven out of society, she is thrown upon her own resources and becomes known as "the scarlet woman," void of heart and conscience. The District Attorney becomes notorious for his association with the sporting element along Broadway, and is believed to be a graft taker. Robert Blake, a wealthy young man, institutes a reform investigation and the District Attorney is exposed. Disbarred and disgraced, Hastings decides to revenge himself upon Thora, whom he considers the cause of his downfall. He cultivates the friendship of Paula Gordon, an unscrupulous society woman, who is much in the company of Blake and holds his respect. Hastings has evidence of a crooked transaction in which Paula participated, and he threatens exposure unless she does his bidding. Through Paula, Thora is introduced to Blake. He is made to understand that she is a pure woman, and she is led to believe that he knows about her past. They fall in love and soon afterward are quietly married. After the wedding Hastings confronts the couple and denounces Thora, telling Blake of her past and that she is the notorious "scarlet woman." Blake gives Hastings a beating, but hears Thora confess that he has told the truth. Before he can regain composure, following this blow, and speak to her, Thora is gone. She secures employment in a factory hidden from her former friends. Paula now hopes to win Blake's love, but he remains steadfast in his love for his wife. Blake becomes a melancholy weakling in his deep sorrow. Paula goes to Thora and tells her she is wrecking his life; that if she would save him she must divorce him and openly return to her old life of the street and café. This Thora does. It proves the severest blow of all for Blake, and he is about to yield to Paula's persuasion to come to her when he learns the truth. He seeks out Thora, begs her to forgive him, as he long ago has forgiven her, and they are happily reunited.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

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

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

During World War I, Louise, a French girl, refuses to leave her château after the invading Germans take it over for use as their headquarters. A German officer, Col. von Knorr, makes repeated advances on her, but she rebuffs him. When another German officer lures her to an inn and attacks her, the colonel kills him. When the colonel tries to apologize to Louise for his past behavior towards her, she gets the wrong idea and stabs him. Complications ensue.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

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

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.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

Discovering that his partner has been selling fake oil stock, Hugh Chilson, realizing that the law will consider him guilty also, flees to South America where he is reported to have committed suicide. Receiving notice of her husband's death, Chilson's wife Claudia marries her old friend Cyrus Brainerd, unaware that he is having an affair with his brother's wife Lily. One day, Curtis is thrown from a horse and is paralyzed, doomed to a life of endless pain. He lies on his bed, calling for death. On the day of the accident, Chilson returns after having made a fortune, but informed of his wife's remarriage, refrains from contacting her. Meanwhile, Claudia, out of pity, places a pistol by Curtis' bed and he takes his life. Upon learning of Chilson's return, Curtis' brother Robert interprets Claudia's act as murder until she silences him by showing him a letter written by Lily to Curtis. Chilson, learning that Claudia is once again free, goes to his wife and the pair are happily reunited.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

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

Crump's Colossal Combined Carnival Show barely survives financially by hiring thieves and pickpockets to rob customers. One day, clubman Jack Hamilton buys the circus when his car breaks down on his way to meet a deadline to avoid bankruptcy and he needs the circus tractor to haul his auto out of a ditch. Hamilton leads the circus to financial success and falls in love with Gypsy, the ticket-taker. To convince Jack to marry Gypsy, her supposed mother, fortune-teller Carlotta, says that she was kidnapped as a baby and shows Jack a photo in which he recognizes Gypsy's mother as the wife of Andrew Pomeroy, the financier who ruined him. Gypsy's subsequent life with her real parents is miserable since they find her lack of manners offensive and try to get her to marry a cousin, but Jack rescues her, and the minute she turns 18 he marries her with the Pomeroys' belated consent.

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.

Dir: Edmund Lawrence

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of What Would You Do? perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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.