Hand-Picked Alternatives for Fans of The Slave Mart: Cult Guide

The The Slave Mart Phenomenon

This 1917 cult classic stands as a testament to push the boundaries of conventional storytelling.

"Combining the elements of dramatic interest and stirring animation is the sensational film "The Slave Mart", a Kimberly Feature production in five reels, which opens at the Bijou theater tonight, While not risque, as a number of persons who were given a private exhibition of the picture indorsed (sic) it, nevertheless it deals with a worldwide theme which has set more than one mind pondering. Pregnant truths are unfolded, exposing conditions in metropolitan centers that will hardly bear the light of investigation. For the reason that youthful minds are so easily open to impressions the management has decided not to admit boy and girls under 16 to the performances. "The Slave Mart" deals with a beautiful Italian immigrant, Maria Gramada, who on her arrival at New York is lured by a gang of human vultures under the guist (sic) of friends of her aunt. Jack Spaulding, a society man, happily senses what is under way and intervenes to save Maria from a terrible fate. A friendship begun in such unusual circumstances ripens into love. Maria is admitted to the Spaulding home, and in the course of time goes as a guest of the family to their seaside home, where she meets a former sweetheart of Jack's. In the meantime in the course of an evening's entertainment they witness a cabaret feature "Zuleiia (sic), the Odalisque in the Slave Mart." The old affection between Jack and his former sweetheart takes on new zest under the flame of their companionship. Maria, her heart sorely wounded, in a moment of jealousy and despair, resolves on a revenge similar to Zuleika's, but fate intervenes and rounds out the love story in a happy way."