Cinematic Discoveries Resonating with the Themes of The Shop Girl: ...

Dir: George D. Baker

"Beauty Smythe is at his old tricks again. Look at the raving beauty he's got on the string now." This was Manning's contribution to the discussion, which was taking place in one of New York's most exclusive clubs. All seemed to take a jolly view of the matter, except Van Allen, who, the others noticed, looked with disapproval on the flirtation. They could not understand his mood, and prodded him for his prudishness. When Smythe joined them, Van Allen called him over and asked him to listen to the story he was about to tell, the story of one man who paid for his loose habits. First, he drew from his pocket, a picture of a young man, about Smythe's age. "My sister's only boy," he said. "Two years ago he was leading the kind of life you are now, Smythe. He came down to Mexico to visit me and met Chonita, a pretty Mexican girl. He immediately became infatuated with her, to the consternation of Pedro, another of her lovers, who soon saw that Teddy held a higher place in her heart than he. When her father heard of the affair, he sent her away to their summer hacienda, hoping that she would forget Teddy. Then Ted received an invitation from a friend to spend the summer with him, and accepted. Out hunting one day, he met Chonita and both were happy at the reunion. He told her of his love for her, and she believed him. Of course he promised to marry her. One day, while walking through the forest. Ted just missed stepping on a tarantula, and shrinking from the hideous thing, told Chonita that he feared those terrible spiders worse than anything on earth. Sometime later, Ted received a note from her telling him to meet her at the usual place, and from the tone of the note he knew what had happened. She came, and brought a minister with her, but Teddy was married, and had two children, so even if he had wanted to, he could not have married her. Before word got back to the hacienda, Ted had hopped on a horse and started at a mad gallop for the railroad station, to avoid the wrath of her father and Pedro. Back in New York once more, he felt secure. Chonita meanwhile was thrown out of her father's house, and her child was born in an abandoned cabin. It lived but a few hours. Then Chonita got a position as dancer in a cheap music hall and became popular immediately. The proprietor of a New York café, seeing her perform, asked her to come to the city and dance for him. When she remembered that her betrayer was also in the city, she accepted. Hearing of her proposed trip, her father sent her a dagger, so that she might first kill Teddy and then herself, but she returned it, telling him that she would choose her own method of death for both of them. In the city she met Teddy once more. She responded to all his advances and finally induced him to invite her to his apartment. Here she presented him with an elaborate jewel case, which, she said, contained a gift. When his anxious hands opened the case, a giant tarantula crawled out. Need I tell you that he died a terrible death?" In a meditative mood, Beauty Smythe sat in his room and reflected on what he had heard. Then the moral hit home, and the letter he had intended sending to his latest "sweetheart" never went further than the trash basket.

Dir: George D. Baker

When Silas Pettingill strikes oil and becomes immensely wealthy, his wife Maria and their daughter Helen demand to move from their Middle-Western home to a mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Even then they are dissatisfied, for they have so fashionable friends. Helen is constantly reading books about royalty, and she bewails her fate because she knows no lords or earls. Wearying of their complaints, Silas goes out and makes friends with a taxicab driver, as agreeable young man named Hubert Stanwood, and as the hour grows late, takes him home with him to bed. In the morning Mrs. Pettingill demands to know who the stranger is. Not daring to tell her he has brought home only a chauffeur, he introduces Stanwood as Count Erfitt. Mrs. Pettingill runs to tell Helen the glad news, and they plan a series of social functions to introduce their guest. Soon the "Count" is seen everywhere with Helen. He does not want to pose under false colors, but Pettingill implores him not to let them know that he has deceived them. At a tea-dance they met Macklin Thurston, who is introduced to them as the Earl of Bradwood. Stanwood starts when he hears the name, for his own grandfather is the heir. He does not know that both have died, and that Thurston, discovering that the second son, Hubert, has been missing for several years, has appeared as a false claimant for the title. Stanwood decides to say nothing, but to investigate. Thurston is really the proprietor of an international employment agency. He uses this position to supply Huntington Lodge, the Adirondack home of the Pettingills, with two servants, Rita and Dugan, who are clever crooks. Both Thurston, as the Earl, and Stanwood, as the Count, are invited to a house party at the Lodge. Helen and Stanwood have fallen in love with each other at their first meeting. Stanwood proposes, and Helen accepts him. But Thurston tells Rita she must find a way to compromise Stanwood. She does so, and Helen breaks her engagement to Stanwood, and announced her engagement to Thurston, known as "the Earl." Stanwood engages a detective to unmask Thurston, but he has manufactured credentials, and Stanwood himself is unmasked as a false count by a man who knew him as a chauffeur. Helen orders him to drive her guests back to their hotel from the lawn fete that is in progress. Thurston goes to Helen's room and tries to persuade her to elope with him, but she refuses. Under cover of night, Rita and Dugan attempt to steal Helen's jewels. Stanwood returns in time to prevent them, but he is injured in the struggle, and when Helen enters she thinks it is he who is the thief. Still loving him, however, she urges him to escape, but the real thieves are apprehended. Detective Burke is about to take both Thurston and Stanwood into custody, not knowing which one of them is the tales Earl of Bradwood, when the lawyer arrives from New York and identifies Stanwood as the genuine Earl. Thurston is led away, and Stanwood and Helen, soon to be Lady Bradwood, are reunited.

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

Dir: George D. Baker

Clover Ames's life consists only of the drudge work that she performs at her Aunt Sarah's boardinghouse. No longer able to withstand her aunt's abuse, Clover runs away and obtains a job as a maid to a wealthy woman. Willed $7,000 by Pierre Dubois, a boarder at her aunt's house, Clover, inspired by a novel that she has read, poses as a duchess at a fashionable winter resort. There she meets and falls in love with Walter Gray, who is also traveling incognito as a ribbon clerk. When Clover's money runs out, her trick is discovered and she vanishes. Obtaining employment in Gray's department store, Clover learns that her ribbon clerk is actually the owner's son, who rushes her to the wedding bureau.

Dir: George D. Baker

Although Earle Courtney has married factory girl Annie Leigh, his millionaire father, Major James Courtney, is determined that Earle will marry the wealthy Ethel Ainsworth. Courtney kidnaps his son and sends a message to Annie requesting an annulment, to which he signs Earle's name. All records of the marriage are then destroyed and Earle is led to believe that his wife has perished in a factory fire. Meanwhile, Annie goes to the city looking for her husband and there her child is born. While in the hospital, she reads an announcement of the wedding of Earle and Ethel. Obtaining employment in a film studio, Annie soon soars to stardom. When Mexican investments result in financial disaster for the Courtneys, Annie takes over the mortgage on their estate and produces a picture based on the story of her betrayal. When Earle views it, he learns of his father's treachery and the major, overcome with remorse, begs Annie's forgiveness. Nothing can undo Earle's unhappy marriage, though, until Ethel elopes with artist Paul Roubais, thus removing all obstacles in the path of Annie and Earle's reconciliation.

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

Dir: George D. Baker

Col. Jessup of Mayville does not waste any affection on his young wife, who finally runs away with a theatrical company, taking her son with her, but leaving her baby daughter. Later, she dies, and the boy, Byron Bennett, known as Buddy, is leading man for a theatrical company playing one-night stands, but this season has been disastrous and the company is about to disband when they receive word that the house is sold out for the performance at Mayville, so they hang on. However, the manager collects the receipts for the performance and takes the first train, leaving the company stranded. Buddy secures a position as Instructor for the Jessup Volunteer Hose Company which is to give an amateur theatrical performance. He persuades Grace Jessup's father to allow her to take the leading part in order to out-do Hose Company No. 1, which also plans a performance. Grace becomes interested in traveling salesman Percy Pennington. He tries to persuade her to elope, but she refuses until he makes a definite promise of marriage. He boasts to Buddy and his friend Skinny and intimates that the promise will not be carried out. Soon after, he starts out riding with Grace. Buddy is suspicious and follows on a bicycle, but is outdistanced. At last, however, he sees the horse tied by the roadside, and hears Grace scream. Rushing to her assistance he overcomes Percy, and carries a wilting Grace home.Col. Jessup, thinking Bud is the culprit, fires at him twice. One bullet lodges in the shoulder; the other is stopped by Buddy's watch in which he carries a picture of his mother. Grace regains consciousness and explains matters, and Jessup is amazed to find that the picture in the watch is that of his wife. The doctor advises that Buddy will recover, and there is a reconciliation among father, son, and daughter.

Dir: George D. Baker

Acting on his belief that most people become sentimental at Christmas time and are therefore easy prey, New York confidence man "Silk" Wilkins ingratiates himself with millionaire Lawrence Gray, whose wife and little daughter Zelda were lost in a flood eighteen years earlier. After promising to find Gray's daughter, Silk returns to his boardinghouse, where he finds Alice Sheldon attempting to escape her desperate financial straits through suicide. Silk convinces Alice to pose as Zelda Gray and then notifies Lawrence via a note placed in an almond shell that he has found the lost daughter. Lawrence treats Alice so kindly that when Silk demands payment from her on Christmas morning, she refuses. Lawrence, who has overheard the conversation, enters and laughingly reveals that he had known of the frame-up all along. Grateful to Silk for finding him a wife, Lawrence writes the confidence man a large check.

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

Dir: George D. Baker

Joline, a "Daughter of Joy," becomes enamored of Paul Granville, a poor artist, and as his model enables him to win fame in a series of startling canvases. A wealthy patron of art commissions Paul to paint "The Madonna of the Rose Bush," and he feels that a new model is needed, but the jealous Joline drives them away, and they start for the monastery, where the miracle of the rose bush is supposed to have occurred. There a monk declares that in Joline he has seen the Virgin, and some chord in her better nature is touched. She leaves Paul, but is reunited when she, a Red Cross nurse, finds him wounded upon the battlefield.

Dir: George D. Baker

To prevent Ben Farraday from exposing the whereabouts of her brother, an escapee from prison, Nan Kennedy agrees to steal important papers from Farraday's enemy, John Lawson. Nan is caught and Lawson agrees to let her go free on the condition that she do his bidding for a year. After arranging a wedding between Nan and Billy Bond, the son of a man whom he blames for stealing his wife, Lawson shocks everyone during the wedding reception by announcing that Nan is a thief. Billy runs away and turns to drink and Nan's only thought is to seek vengeance against Lawson. Knowing that his one weakness is his belief in spiritualism, Nan poses as a medium and advises him to sell certain stocks. The next day, Lawson finds himself ruined. Meanwhile, Billy vows to kill Lawson, leaving a note to inform his father of the deed. Discovering the note, the elder Bond rushes to Lawson's house and announces that Billy is actually Lawson's son. Overcome, Billy's nerves break and he cries for Nan. Lawson, repentant, finds her and a happy reunion takes place.

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

Dir: George D. Baker

A grandmother has an adventure for the first time in her life when she decides to have a night out.

Dir: George D. Baker

College youth J. Dabney Barron regularly fails in his examinations; in disgust, his father deprives him of money and tells him to go to work, betting him $6,000 that he cannot hold a $60-a-month position for that time period. J. Dabney agrees, and with his valet Perkins he goes to look for a job. In a park he meets heiress Betty Arden, whose car has broken down. Her guest, Lord Lawrence, is incapable of helping her, and Dabney hastens to her assistance. She hurries away as soon as her car is repaired. Installing himself and his valet in a room in a lodging house, Dabney reads the want ads. Answering an advertisement for a bookkeeper, he stands in a long line of applicants until he grows tired; his valet, who has taken his place, gets the job. Finally Dabney obtains work through his friend Jim Foley of a detective agency. John Arden, millionaire gem collector, has a priceless emerald called "The Lady of the Sea." He fears it may be stolen and as a matter of fact his guest Lord Lawrence, better known to the English police as "London Larry," is planning to steal the emerald. Foley tells Dabney that to guard the emerald he must pose as butler in the Arden home. No sooner does Dabney enter upon his new work than he discovers Betty Arden, his employer's daughter, to be the girl he helped in the park. In an attempt to retain his dignity in her eyes he tells her he and his sister inherited an enormous fortune from an uncle; that the uncle had a secretary a villainous chap named Slime who forced him to make a will disinheriting Dabney and his sister; that Slime and his accomplices made the old man drink nitroglycerin but unfortunately for them permitted him to fall down when he exploded burning up the will; that the villainous secretary had then overpowered Dabney and run away with the girl, whom Dabney had ever since been seeking, hence his presence in the Arden household as butler. Betty pretends to believe the story, although she has been aware of Dabney's identity all along. Dabney continues to attend to his duties as butler and to guard the jewel from "London Larry." Finally the month is up, and Dabney, in great glee at having won the bet from his father, dares to make known his love to Betty. She returns his affection, and they are discovered in a fond embrace by John Arden, who instantly discharges Dabney. That night he is about to take his departure when he surprises "London Larry" opening the safe in Arden's library. He overpowers the would-be jewel thief, and throws him into the safe. Arden, coming downstairs, liberates Lord Lawrence, who tells him Dabney is the real culprit, and together they overpower him and tie him to a chair. Dabney urges them to send for Foley, to identify him, and the detective, arriving, makes haste to free Dabney and arrest "London Larry." Dabney, cheered by Betty's promise to marry him, goes home to collect his $6,000, having proved himself his father's son.