Underground Favorites Mirroring the Impact of The Slim Princess: Cu...

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Farmer Toby Watkinsm whose fanciful poetry does not impress his exasperated uncle, leaves the farm to become a subscription solicitor for the "Sawbert Weekly Clarion." In Sawbert, Toby meets Mayor Lot Morris' daughter Jean, and the shy young people fall in love. Crooked stock promoter Kendall Reeves arrives in town and unveils his plan to open a string-bean cannery. While the venture receives the mayor's support, "Clarion" editor Zachary Bartrum, Morris' political enemy, suspects Reeves and decides to block the scheme. On the night Reeves presents his plan to the citizens, Bartrum falls ill and asks Toby to deliver his opposing speech, but seeing Jean in the audience, he loses his courage and dashes from the hall. The next day, Toby overhears Joe Farley, Reeves' former partner, demanding a share of the profits. Farley learns of this and warns Reeves, who goes to the mayor's home and, gun in hand, demands $5,000. Toby arrives and defeats the crook in a fight, after which the grateful mayor becomes reconciled to Bartrum and bestows his blessing on his daughter's romance with Toby.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of His Own Home Town perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Jimmy Duncan, the son of the well-respected Reverend Duncan, takes over his local newspaper as manager. He takes on the criminal element in town with great vigor, until he realizes that his own father is in league with those devils.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Traveling saleswoman Mary Marbury thrashes a masher on a train when he tries to kiss a young girl in a tunnel. After the man and his female companion are escorted from the train, Mary encounters them again in New York City, where they attempt to marry the children of her wealthy employer, Jonas Abbott, then pose as cubist art instructors Fernando Poyntier and his sister, Marcia. Jonas worries that his son and Mary's fiancé, Raymond, is leading a frivolous life in the city's Bohemian community. Mary plots to incur the boy's jealousy by posing as an adventuress leading Jonas astray. When the Poyntiers suspect that the Abbott fortune could go to Mary instead of to them, they rob Jonas's safe and hide the money on his yacht, on which they plan to escape. Exhausted from dancing the fox-trot, Mary and Abbott rest on the yacht, and she discovers the money. When the crooks are captured, Raymond, realizing his love for Mary, proposes.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

An American munitions manufacturer and his son become ensnarled with enemy agents from Germany during the First World War.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

James Ashe sends his son James Jr. off to manage a family-owned logging mill. While attending to his duties, James Jr. falls in love with a beautiful girl.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

Millionaire Larry Prentiss inherits a ranch. He decides to visit his new property incognito and gets a job as a ranch-hand. He falls in love with the ranch foreman's daughter and complications ensue.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

A young woman works in the scullery of a grand hotel, and dreams of a life among its fashionable patrons.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

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

During the May Day celebration at Ferryville, Millie Martin, whose stingy father will not buy her proper clothes, watches as Violet Henry, the daughter of the town's richest man, is pushed into a stagnant pool by the village bolshevik. The story amuses Millie's father, who gives her a dollar, with which she buys beauty cream in preparation for her first railway journey. On the train, Millie meets John Turner, a carpet layer disguised as a doctor. Earlier, John fought a man caught cheating at poker. He took his uncle's railway ticket and doctor's bag when he thought the cheater was killed. After Millie feigns a toothache to get John's attention, her father, to avoid a doctor's bill, gives her chewing tobacco as a remedy. When she swallows it, and John orders an operation, the train stops at a nearby sanitarium. After Millie escapes, and John finds her in a room with a baby, they both explain. John is mistaken for a burglar, and after his uncle arrives to straighten matters out, John and Millie are free to pursue romance.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Jim Bowen, a cashier in a prosperous insurance firm, lives happily with his wife Mary and son Frankie until Alan Perry, the profligate son of Jim's employer, frames Jim for forgery. Because the fraudulent check was cashed in ward boss John Boland's cabaret, Mary decides to work there while Jim serves his time, in the hope of tracking down the real criminal. Perry, who frequents the café, becomes infatuated with Mary and, on the very night her husband escapes from prison, follows her home and tries to force his attentions on her. When Boland arrives unexpectedly, Perry knocks him down, apparently killing him, whereupon Mary threatens to call the police unless he confesses to having framed Jim. Boland hears Perry's confession as he regains consciousness, and on the basis of his testimony, Perry is arrested and Jim freed.

Dir: Victor Schertzinger

Shy Joel Parker seems bound for nowhere, until Abbie Nettleton enters his life. With her prodding, Joel goes from timid nobody to a baseball star with bravura.