Hidden Genre Gems In Alignment with the style of The Rosary: Cult G...

Dir: Colin Campbell

Living with her cruel and greedy father on their Indiana farm, Pretty Patience Thompson, is a "girl with a singing soul," However, her life of drudgery is brightened by John, the hired hand, but when he asks for her hand in marriage, the old man flies into a rage and discharges him. Soon an aged but wealthy widower courts Patience, and although she still loves John, her father orders her to marry the widower. Aware of her unhappiness, the kindly squire and his wife arrange for John to hide in the Thompson home on the day of the wedding. With all of the guests assembled, Patience runs from the room and pretends to escape on a horse, and while the two old men search the fields for her, she quietly marries John.

Dir: Colin Campbell

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

The story of a young woman who agrees to marry a man for his money, but is thwarted and ends up marrying another for love, only to discover a secret.

Dir: Colin Campbell

A jealous dance-hall girl kills her lover. She escapes from the sheriff who is taking her to jail and hides out in the forest with a recluse who lives in a hollowed-out redwood. As the sheriff searches for her, a forest fire breaks out, and they must all band together if they hope to survive.

Dir: Colin Campbell

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

U.S. Secret Service agent Truxton Darnley attires himself as a sailor and boards a schooner owned by Gus Olsen, who has been employed by a German spy named Von Linterman to smuggle arms to German raiders in the South Seas. During the voyage, Truxton learns that Gus and his men plan to blow up the National Munitions Plant in San Francisco, but Gus discovers his identity and throws him overboard. Truxton is washed ashore on the island of Moana, where he meets and falls for Lurline, the daughter of beachcomber "Brandy" Cain. Promising to return to her, Truxton boards a steamer bound for San Francisco in the hope of saving the munitions plant, and soon afterwards, Brandy sells Lurline into marriage with Gus. Seeing Truxton's steamer, Lurline dives from Gus's schooner, and her sweetheart rescues her. In San Francisco, Gus abducts Lurline and forces her to dance in his Barbary Coast saloon, but Truxton and his men raid the bar, and Gus is killed. After receiving the happy news that her real father is the owner of the munitions plant, Lurline joins Truxton, the man of her dreams.

Dir: Colin Campbell

Former college football hero Kirk Anthony, to the disappointment of his father, a railroad magnate, refuses to enter the business world. Kirk prefers to coach the university team and carouse, until he is drugged during a drunken victory party and put aboard a steamer bound for Panama by an embezzler who switches clothes with him. During the trip, Mrs. Edith Cortlandt, who has married her diplomat husband for convenience, falls in love with Kirk. In Panama, Kirk and Allan Allan, a Jamaican friend, are arrested when Kirk's efforts to use American firefighting methods cause a riot. After Mrs. Cortlandt's influence gets Kirk out of jail and into a job, he falls in love with Chiquita Garavel, the daughter of a Spanish grandee. When Mrs. Cortlandt warns Kirk not to marry Chiquita, her husband overhears. He insults Kirk in public, and Kirk vows revenge. After Cortlandt commits suicide, and Kirk, who has secretly married Chiquita, is arrested, Mrs. Cortlandt withholds Cortlandt's suicide note, but Kirk's father arrives and convinces her to help arrange Kirk's release.

Dir: Colin Campbell

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

The first of many filmed adaptations of Rex Beach's adventure novel of the Alaskan gold-rush.

Dir: Colin Campbell

Miss Otis nearly hits a derelict with her car, and out of sympathy she gives him some money and advises him to "clean up and keep clean." Soon after, the derelict meets Esther, an anarchist who involves him in a plot to blackmail a banker. When he realizes that Miss Otis is the banker's daughter, the derelict tears up the banker's check but is arrested and committed to an asylum. Esther, who is in love with the derelict, helps him escape, and he resolves to attain a position of wealth and importance. After he earns his fortune, he rejects Esther's affections and asks Miss Otis to marry him.

Dir: Colin Campbell

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Ne'er Do Well perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

In the small shipbuilding town of Danforth, Albert Walker realizes, to his distress, that German sympathizers, spies and draft evaders, by voicing doubts about the United States' involvement in the war, are having a disastrous effect on the patriotic spirit of the townspeople. In order to silence these "yellow dogs," Albert organizes the boys of Danforth into a club, to be headed by a young patriot called "Nosey" White. The boys pledge to challenge unpatriotic remarks by handling the speaker a card labeled "yellow dog." While Nosey is in the home of his sweetheart, Kate Cummings, one day, he overhears her father, Alexander Cummings, in conversation with a group of German spies. Learning that the agents plan to set fire to the shipyard, he informs his father, who rushes to the scene and engages one of the spies in a fight. The spy is shot, and when Albert and Nosey expose Cummings, the German is sent to prison.

Dir: Colin Campbell

New York broker Bruce Corbin comes to Kentucky to force Allan Pomeroy, whom Bruce can prove is a forger, to give him his daughter Ruth in marriage. Even though she loves Spencer Vail, Ruth agrees, and despite Pomeroy's death, they wed. Ruth soon discovers that Bruce, to avenge his father's death in a feud with the Pomeroys, married her so that she would be childless, thus ending the Pomeroy family. Because Bruce was born during a thunderstorm, he temporarily goes insane whenever he hears a thunderbolt and forgets his actions while affected. Knowing this, Ruth seduces him during a storm, the night before he is to leave for a year. Later, when Bruce sees Ruth's child, he starts to choke it, believing it to be Vail's, but Ruth stops him by telling him of the stormy night. After four years in a distant marriage pass, Bruce loses his fortune because of another thunderbolt. Ruth leaves, but later they are reconciled because of the child.

Dir: Colin Campbell

The Pasha's servant Mohamed, is entrusted to guard the Sacred Carpet of Bagdad with his life. In New York, after banker Arthur Wadsworth forces his brother Horace to give up his inheritance, Horace joins a band of crooks and plans to rob the Wadsworth Bank by tunneling from the adjacent home of antique dealer George P. A. Jones. The gang follows Jones to Egypt and Bagdad, where Horace steals the carpet and sells it to Jones. Fortune Chedsoye, the innocent daughter of a gang member, falls in love with Jones. When Fortune discovers that Mohamed plans to kill Jones to retrieve the rug, she hides it with her mother's belongings. Mohamed forces Jones, Wadsworth, and Fortune into the desert, but they escape his torture during a sandstorm. Wadsworth then rejoins the gang at Jones' home in New York. When Fortune and Jones catch the crooks tunneling, Jones, sympathetically, gives them a two hour head-start before informing the police. Fortune and Jones keep the carpet, while in the East, Mohamed bows in resignation to Allah's will.