Must-Watch List in the Vein of The Seven Swans: Cult Guide

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

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

The story opens at General Feversham's residence at the annual dinner that he gives to the ones who are left of the Crimea officers. At this dinner, Harry Feversham, the General's only son, a boy of fourteen, is a guest. After the dinner is finished they tell stories of what happened in the Crimea, and Harry listens intently. The story is carried ahead about ten years when Harry is a captain in the army, showing him with his friend, Captain Durrance. They are both in love with the same girl, Ethne Eustace, and Harry and the girl after a time become engaged. Harry gives a dinner to his brother officers, Captain French, Lt. Willoughby and Captain Castleton, to announce his engagement. During the dinner Harry receives a telegram saying the regiment is ordered on regular service. Harry does not show his fellow officers the telegram as he should have done. They see him throw it into the fire. After they have gone, Harry determines to give up his commission, fearing that when put to the test he will be a coward. To preclude such a possibility he sends in his resignation. His fellow officers have, in the meantime, found out that they are ordered on active service, and next day they see that Harry Feversham has resigned his commission. They decide to send him three white feathers. While a ball is going on at Ethne's home a small package comes addressed to Captain Harry Feversham. He opens it in front of the girl and she asks him what he has done and he tells her. When she brands him as a coward, and striking a white feather from her fan, gives it to him. After this Harry Feversham's father will have nothing to do with him, and he consults his mother's old friend, Lieutenant Sutch, and announces to him that he is going to try and retrieve himself. He sails for Egypt in the hope of being able to do something and make the senders take back their feathers. After a long wandering at last he gets his chance and after many trials and tortures by the Arabs and a thrilling rescue he makes his fellow officers take back their feathers. In the meantime Durrance has been with his regiment in the Sudan and has been struck blind by the glare of the sun. Ethne, taking pity on him, has become engaged to him. Harry returns home to find that Ethne is engaged to another man. One day Durrance overhears them talking and decides for the sake of both of them to give up the girl, thus making Ethne and Harry both happy, and go back to the desert he loved so well.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

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

A peasant girl sent to make a claim on her family's ancestral home in England's Wessex is seduced and left with child by its current owner.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

A successful stage actress with a hidden past as a criminal is kept on the path of righteousness by a benefactor.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Tess of the D'Urbervilles perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

News is received by Sir Jeoffrey, a dissolute roué, whose contempt for the other sex extends even to his own daughters, of the arrival of another female child in the family. The mother dies shortly after, and the child, Clorinda, is brought up among the servants without a guiding hand. True to his vow to ignore his offspring, Sir Jeoffrey does not come in contact with Clo, until her sixth year, when he finds her playing with his powder horn in the great hall of his castle, Wildair, and sternly upbraids her. The child, who has inherited her father's courage and strength of will, shows no fear, and grasping a riding crop beats Sir Jeoffrey with all the fury of her tiny wrath. Her spirit and daring attract Sir Jeoffrey's attention, and he is delighted to find the child his own. From that moment, he keeps her in his own company, dressed in boy's clothing to obscure her sex, a member of his wanton circle. She grows up in this atmosphere of debauchery, and learns to swear, smoke and drink. Years later, at a hunting lodge, she meets the Duke of Osmonde and other great gentlemen, who are shocked at her male attire and masculine manners. In a spirit of pious benevolence, Lord Twenlow sends his chaplain to Wildair Hall to censure Sir Jeoffrey for permitting his daughter to grow up in this wild style. Clo overhears the Chaplain's remonstrances and realizes the true significance of her reckless habits. Meantime, her notoriety has reached London, and Sir John Oxon, the beau ideal of the town, lays a wager that he will win the heart of Clo, not as a hoyden, but as a woman. He arrives at Wildair Hall on Clo's birthday-night, and banters her on her claims to masculine prowess. Stung by his derision to prove she has all the attributes of a man, she challenges him to a duel, in which Sir John Oxon is badly worsted. However, his sarcasm has had definite effect and at the striking of the midnight hour, she gives the toast to the assembled noblemen: "Behold me for the last time clad in trousers." Later she appears in the Hall dressed in all the finery of a lady of quality, and from that moment bends every effort to attain that title legitimately. Sir John Oxon piles all his wiles to win her untutored heart, and she finally falls a victim to his flattery. Secretly she meets him in the rose garden, but publicly she slights him in the great halls. Nevertheless, Oxon wins her confidence, and she bestows her first kiss upon his lips, but not without a price, for at that moment he steals one of her raven curls, the proof of his wager. He hastens back to London to boast of his conquest, but in an intoxicated moment he hides the curl for safe-keeping, forgetting where. Clo waits for his return and is shocked when she receives news from London that he is to wed a wealthy lady of title. At this critical moment in her life the old Earl of Dunstanwolde asks her hand in marriage, and piqued at having thrown her affections so idly away, she accepts. A half hour later, she meets the Duke of Osmonde, and recognizes in him the man she loves. Faithful to her promise, she marries the Earl of Dunstanwolde, and becomes his devoted wife until he dies two years later. Sir John Oxon, having failed to make his match, and aware that Clo now possesses wealth, influence and position, tries to win back the heart he had so ruthlessly cast aside. But Osmonde has triumphed over her affections, causing jealousy and hatred to creep into the heart of Oxon. Chance places again in his hand the lost curl, which he holds over her head as a silken sword. Stunned by the fear that she will lose the love of Osmonde through the accusing evidence of the curl in an intensely dramatic scene in which Oxon attempts to force his embraces upon her, she strikes him across the temple with her riding crop. He falls to the floor. She lashes him, the pale still body lies there, dead. At that moment guests arrive, she conceals the body under the couch, and in the dead of night she drags it down into the deep cellar. For years afterwards, she atones for her sin by paying Oxon's debts, consoling the women had he wronged, and in other ways undoing the evil he had wrought.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

Beanie and Effie Deans are the two daughters of old David Deans, a thrifty Scotchman and strict church member, living near Edinburgh. David has reared his daughters in accordance with his rigid and austere ideas of life. The two sisters are as different in appearance and mind as two people could possibly be. Jeanie is steady, calm, noble and unaffected in dress and manner, while little Effie is gay and flighty, fond of finery and flirtations. Arriving at womanhood, Effie falls in love with young Georgie Robertson, the profligate son of a rich minister. Georgie has wandered far from his father's home and fold, and in his love for adventure becomes entangled with a band of smugglers. Under promise of marriage, Georgie often meets Effie secretly and gains her love and trust, but on his way to their prospective marriage is waylaid and arrested, in company with the leader of the smugglers, and thrown into prison. Effie has kept her family in ignorance of her love and betrothal, and has withheld from Jeanie even a greater secret, that she is to become a mother. Crushed by her misfortune, little Effie manages to secure a position in Edinburgh, and there receives word from Georgie, in prison, to go in her hour of trouble to friends of his who will care for her. She goes to these people, Madge Wildfire and her mother, a strange, eccentric pair, the mother a wicked old hag, the daughter demented through grief over her dead babe. They shelter Effie while her own little one is born, but the crazed Madge steals the young infant, leaving it alone by the roadside. The child is rescued by strangers, but is lost to Effie, who finally returns home, still guarding her sad secret. And there, for a time, she finds peace and quiet. But the old hag, fearing lest Effie accuse Madge of stealing the child, determines to accuse Effie of killing her own babe. Effie is torn from her dazed and grief-stricken family and thrust into prison, awaiting trial. During this lapse of time Robertson has escaped from prison, and incited a riot to rescue the smuggler-leader, who is popular among the town folks. Learning that Effie, too, is in the prison, Robertson also strives to effect her release. To his alarm and surprise, Effie refuses to leave the prison until her innocence is proved, and he is forced to leave without her. Desperate, he remembers the old Scotch law to the effect that if the accused has told any of her family that she is to become a mother, the statement is accepted as an evidence that she does not intend the death of her child. Robertson therefore writes Jeanie, begging her to meet him at midnight at an old church, and bidding her tell no one why he wishes to see her. This note he gives to Mr. Butler, a young minister, who loves Jeanie and is loved by her. Butler bears the note to Jeanie, demanding to know the reason for this appointment, but she steadfastly refuses to tell him, causing an estrangement between them. Jeanie meets Robertson, and he pleads with her to lie in court and thus save her sister. Meanwhile, Butler has been questioned by the authorities, on the occasion of a visit to Effie, as to his acquaintance with the escaped prisoner, Robertson, and is forced to reveal the contents of the note he bore to Jeanie. A searching party goes in pursuit of Robertson, led by Madge Wildfire, who knows the district better than the others. Madge divines the men mean danger to Robertson, whom she admires, and warns him with a wild song, so that he escapes in time, but without having secured Jeanie's promise. Jeanie visits Effie in prison, and is again begged to tell one little lie to save her sister's life, but she cannot escape her slavery to truth and honor, and refuses. At the trial Effie is condemned to die. Jeanie then goes barefoot to London and begs the Queen for her sister's life, telling her all. Though they offer the pardon in exchange for Robertson's hiding place, she staunchly refuses to reveal it. Her loyalty and strength appeal to the Queen's sympathies, and she grants the pardon. Stopping for nothing, she hastens back to the prison, and reaches the place of execution just in time. And so Jeanie saves her sister's life without the blight of having told a lie.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of In the Bishop's Carriage perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Marta is a beggar child, who is adopted by Sebastien, the wealthy landowner. Sebastien makes Marta his victim. He wishes to marry a wealthy woman, but at the same time retain his influence over Marta. He therefore arranges through Tomas, the hermit, to marry her to Manelich, a simple, untutored shepherd living in the mountains, a rough child of nature who kills wolves with his bare hands and knows naught of guile and deceit. The wedding is performed, Manelich being under the impression that Marta loves him, and being truly in love with her. Later he learns he has been tricked, while Marta, who had at first believed that Manelich had been bought with the master's gold to become her husband, finds her conclusion wrong, the honesty of his love compelling her own. Then come developments which make the drama one of the most passionate, intense, trenchant character studies ever created. Marta is a patient sufferer, a tragic figure indeed, as she bravely endures all the cruelty and indignities that are thrust upon her by the ruthless "master." We witness the poignancy of her grief, the restraint and the anguish of the oppressed woman, and her movements among the treacherous characters of her environment.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

Mark Embury sets out to create the perfect wife by adopting Peggy. His work is a success until the girl falls in love with another man. Ultimately, he must give her up and become satisfied with knowing, he did create the perfect wife, albeit for someone else.

Dir: J. Searle Dawley

Detective Kate Kirby discovers that a ship captain has been sent on a doomed voyage by his rival for the affections of the shipowner's daughter.