Visionary Picks Drawn from the Same DNA as The Solitary Sin: Cult Guide

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

After learning that his daughter Eleanor has been stricken blind, artist John Grayson dies of grief before he can complete his masterpiece, leaving her in their housekeeper's care. Artist Burton Lester rents Grayson's studio and a close friendship grows between him and Eleanor. Companionship ripens into love and when Burton learns that Eleanor's sight can be restored through an operation, he arranges for it. Upon recovering her sight, Eleanor learns that Burton has been married. Embittered by his deception, Eleanor leaves at once for New York where she finishes her father's masterpiece, winning renown as an artist. Meanwhile, Frank Hargreave, a young man with high morals, falls in love with her. When Hargreave's frivolous sister Vera loses her necklace while visiting a cabaret, she turns to Burton for help. Burton's reappearance forces Eleanor to confess all to Frank who then shuns her. Furious at both men, Eleanor is about to leave by train when she meets Vera with Burton. She stops to warn her of Burton's capriciousness in love, but learns that he is only trying to help Vera retrieve her necklace. A reconciliation is effected and all ends well as Eleanor and Burton announce their engagement.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Oh, Doctor, Doctor! perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

A husband enters the wrong flat and finds twins babies, which he takes to the office to show the boys. He engages a German band to help with the celebration at a restaurant, but at this moment the real father arrives with the police.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

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

When her husband Jim strikes it rich, Grace, who has had a lifelong fear of poverty, strictly raises her daughter Florence to accept only luxury. When Florence is old enough to have suitors, she quickly rejects penniless artist Durland and marries rich playboy Alfred Griffin, but soon learns that he is an unfaithful spendthrift, so they soon become bitter enemies. In a final effort to ruin Florence's life, Alfred neatly arranges evidence to make her look like his murderer, then commits suicide, but the butler saw everything and is able to clear Florence of this charge; afterward she rushes to Durland and they plan to get married.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

Margery Carew and her widowed sister, Anna Prentice, find work in a brokerage firm, James Gray, the junior partner, soon falls in love with Margery, while his boss, William Cleves, does his best to seduce Anna. In fighting off William's advances, Anna kills him, but Margery, hoping to protect Anna's child, takes the blame and then escapes to the West, after which she gets married and begins a new life. Following a lengthy search, the police manage to track her down, but Margery still refuses to save herself by telling the truth about the murder, even though Anna and her child died several years before in a car crash. Finally, however, because he still loves her and because he has been stricken by a deadly disease that will kill him in a few months, James confesses to the murder, thereby freeing Margery to return to her husband.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

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

A dramatization of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem 'The Courtship of Miles Standish,' this is the story of the Pilgrims who fled religious persecution in England and came to America aboard the Mayflower. John Alden, After numerous adventures at sea and with Indians on land, John Alden is asked by his friend Myles Standish to seek for him the romantic favor of his secret beloved, Priscilla Mullens. But Priscilla has eyes for another: John Alden.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

Mary Murdock, forced by circumstances to choose between the streets and theft, is caught breaking into the home of Robert Howard. He is inclined to listen to her plea for leniency, but, urged by his cruel and selfish wife, lets the law take its course. After serving her term she is unable to secure employment, due to her prison record, and seeks the two who are responsible for her plight. She finds Howard despondent over his wife's running away with another man and about to commit suicide. To the man who wanted to die the girl who wanted to live makes a proposition, to use his fortune to better prison conditions and lending those with a prison record a helping hand. She offers her own knowledge as her half of the partnership. He accepts and the plan proves so successful that Howard is appointed warden of a large prison. But matters sail along too smoothly and cleanly to suit the corrupt political ring and they start a blackmailing scheme against Howard. Mary's intuition senses a solution to Howard's vindication and she matches her brains against the political boss and his henchmen and clears the name of the man she loves and reaps her first real happiness as her reward.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

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

A married man suddenly inherits a fortune and finally has enough money to live his dream of becoming an artist. He moves his wife and daughter to a big expensive house and starts living the life of a "bohemian" artist. When he begins an affair with another woman, his wife leaves him and his daughter Alicia breaks off her engagement to a wealthy doctor and becomes involved in the "free love" movement espoused by one Herbert Rawlins. Rawlins, however, has his own plans for Alicia, and they don't involve "sharing" her with anyone else. Complications ensue.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

Unable to agree on the man responsible for the plays commonly attributed to William Shakespeare, Miss Gray, who favors Francis Bacon, and Lieutenant Stanton, who accepts Shakespeare as the author, break off their engagement. Stanton then arranges to be transferred to the Mexican border, and while fighting there is badly wounded. When she hears the news about Stanton's condition, Miss Gray faints, and then dreams that she has been transported to Elizabethan times. Then, after Bacon falls in love with her, she discovers his obsessive jealousy of Shakespeare, and learns that he has bribed a courtier to accuse him of stealing Bacon's plays. As a result, when Miss Gray wakes up, she realizes that she has championed the wrong poet, and so she immediately is reconciled with Stanton, who soon recovers from his wound.

Dir: Frederick Sullivan

The many rejected suitors of Mary Brown form the "Broken Heart Club" and console each other in their misery. The last member decides that Mary needs a lesson and proceeds to give her one. He gets a fashion dummy and on his porch the rejected ones pay "Miss Hope" all sorts of attention. Mary falls for the ruse and starts an investigation. She doesn't find out who the guest is until she has promised to marry the man who had the brains to think up the trick.