Underground Favorites Mirroring the Impact of The Road to Mandalay: Cult Guide

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A slum girl is forced to steal for a living. After she swipes a rich society's matron's necklace, she hides out at the home of a man who turns out to be the socialite's former fiance.

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

Carma Carmichael, who lives with her uncle Quincy, is kidnapped by her renegade father Roger and taken to his ancestral Southern home. Uncle Quincy sends young Jack Carrington to investigate and goes into hiding, leading the Carmichaels to believe he is dead. Carma is at first suspicious of Jack's intentions but soon learns that the man who abducted her is actually an impostor who murdered her father and now lives in the plantation with a group of thugs. Despite "Roger's" attempts to take Jack's life, the young man incites the thugs against him and they attack the house. Uncle Quincy arrives with a posse, and after their rescue, Carma and Jack embrace.

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Master thief Blue Jean Billie, the unknown perpetrator of many sensational jewel heists, robs the guests at the exclusive party marking the engagement of Muriel Vanderflip to Algernon P. Smythe, Lord Chesterton. Overpowering Detective Wood, specially stationed there to stop her, Muriel escapes with her chauffeur, Shaver Michael. After Shaver's car overturns, Billie surprises her pursuers, and at gunpoint, makes them return, but Smythe, hiding on the side of Shaver's car, accompanies them until Billie discovers him and makes him take them to his home, where she holds him prisoner. To Shaver's dismay, Billie and Smythe fall in love. After they escape a police raid, Smythe convinces Billie to send the jewels back and marry him. Although she has her doubts when she learns that Smythe is really the international crook "English Harry," after he fights Shaver and locks him and Wood in their retreat with the stolen jewels, Billie and Harry make their final escape vowing to go straight.

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

Princess Marya and her brother, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, are studying in the U.S. when word reaches them that Rasputin is to be killed. Paul is seized by Russian secret service men, but through Marya's appeal to Captain Rodney Willard, he is released. In Russia, Marya participates actively in the Revolution, while Willard, with whom she has fallen in love, joins the Allied Commission. Deeply troubled by the influence of German agents in Russia, Marya organizes the Legion of Death, a fighting unit of peasant women, and leads them into battle against the Germans. The legion suffers defeat and Marya is captured, but in the end, she wins her freedom.

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Peggy Desmond, the daughter of an Irish magistrate, loves Captain Neil Dacey, but is pursued by Terence O'Malley, the nephew of Squire O'Malley, a wealthy landowner. Although the squire offers to pay off the Desmonds' debts if Peggy were to marry Terence, Peggy refuses. After Neil invokes the name of Rory O'More, the "Will o' the Wisp," a legendary Irish Robin Hood, Peggy dresses up as a highwayman and robs Squire O'Malley, then gives the purse to one of the squire's poor tenants. As the local law officer, Neil is assigned to capture the bandit, but is robbed himself by his clever incognito sweetheart. When the squire turns up dead, Neil, whose gun is found next to the corpse, is arrested and jailed. To free her love, Peggy disguises herself once more as a highwayman and forces Terence to confess to the murder at gunpoint. Once released, Neil deduces that Peggy is the bandit and makes good on her promise to marry the man who succeeded in unmasking the "Will o' of the Wisp."

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

Alisa Graeme travels from Scotland to America to visit Jeremiah Wishart, an old wealthy friend of her grandfather. The invalid Jeremiah is charmed by Alisa and decides she would make a good wife for his favorite nephew David. Without meeting Alisa, David refuses the arrangement and runs away. Later, Alisa also runs away rather than wed another of Jeremiah's nephews and meets a young billboard painter in the country. The two form a partnership, travel the countryside together painting billboards and gradually fall in love. When the painter tells Alisa that he won't marry until his finances are secure, she leaves him in anger and heads for Jeremiah's house. From his wheelchair, Jeremiah sees first his wayward nephew painting a nearby billboard, then a young woman stopping to help him. Jeremiah's initial anger at David mellows when he recognizes the woman as Alisa. Once Alisa and David realize the other's identity, they happily reunite.

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Railroad president John Houston, along with his daughter Marjorie and his fiancee, Elinor Craig, are aboard the express train when it is held up by a gang of outlaws. Outlaw Dan Tracy is attracted to Marjorie, who, filled with dreams of romance, returns his interest. They exchange rings and later meet secretly in the city. When Houston learns that his daughter's new suitor is an outlaw, he hires a detective to investigate. The investigation indicates that Tracy is Houston's son by a former marriage, and Houston, mortified, allows the outlaw to escape. Tracy then persuades Marjorie to elope with him and takes her to his shack in the hills where she is rudely awakened to the realities of outlaw life. Houston arrives to save his daughter, and after Tracy is killed by Rosanne, the woman he betrayed, it is revealed that Tracy was not his son but an offspring of his former wife and an outlaw.

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A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Peggy, the Will O' the Wisp perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Easterner Alva Leigh arrives in the mining town of Magnet just after her fiancé, Donald Jaffray, has been murdered. Because Alva has sworn vengeance, "Sudden" Duncan, the real murderer, accuses Donald's partner, Dick Randall, of the crime. Knowing that Dick is planning a journey across the desert, Duncan fills his canteen with poison, but Alva, who also is determined to kill Dick, drills a hole in the canteen so that the water will drain out. After Dick's departure, Alva learns from "Tiger Lil'," who is jealous of Duncan's attention to the Eastern newcomer, that it was Duncan who killed Donald. Frantic, Alva immediately mounts a horse and rides into the desert to save the man she now recognizes as her true love. Tiger Lil' shoots Duncan in a dance hall quarrel, and Alva marries Dick.

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Doris Standish's father insists upon her marriage to aging millionaire Cyrus W. Hopkins, but just before the wedding, the young woman runs from the house and leaps into a parked car, ordering the chauffeur to drive her quickly away. The driver is Jimmy Nevin, who, because Hopkins financially ruined his father, has agreed to help a gang of crooks in their plot to steal the bride's jewels and wedding presents. Realizing that Doris is not Mary Butler, his accomplice, Jimmy offers to accompany her home, but when she refuses to return, he takes her to the thieves' hideout. Mary and her henchmen try to rob Doris, but she escapes and notifies the police. Doris, her father and Hopkins return to the hideout just before the police arrive to arrest all of the thieves but Jimmy, who has grown extremely fond of the runaway bride.

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Gudrun works in the American wheat country as a hired girl to Mrs. Hawes. Charley Holt, the son of a rich family, takes the Swedish girl to a dance where she is snubbed by his mother and sister. Furious by his elitist relatives, Charley marries Gudrun and gets a menial job as a mill worker. A child is born, but Gudrun's life is unhappy because Charley becomes an alcoholic. After five years of marriage Charley dies in a saloon fight. Gudrun then buys a small farm and works the wheat fields. When tramp Martin O'Neill comes to the farm, Mary feeds him and he works for her. Martin later saves Gudrun and her child from a burning barn but is suspected of starting the fire himself and narrowly escapes a lynching. Finally, it is disclosed that the fire was actually started by Heine, a jealous rival, and Gudrun and Martin are married.