Essential Cult Cinema Mirroring the Impact of The Son of the White Mountain: Cult Guide

Dir: Roy William Neill

Mary Wayne (Constance Talmadge) is left alone and penniless in New York City after her father dies. She desperately needs a job after being thrown out of her apartment for causing a small fire while cooking. At an employment agency she becomes fast friends with a sick girl, Nell Norcross, and assumes her identity and good references to start work as a secretary for elderly socialite Caroline Marshall, which soon involves playing wrangler to the lady's college-dropout nephew William "Bill" Marshall (Vincent Coleman). Bill is much more interested in going to illegal boxing matches with his buddy Peter Stearns (Ned Sparks) than in throwing lavish dinner parties for his family's high-society friends. While Mary tries to do her job and keep her true identity from being discovered, William begins to fall in love with her.

Dir: Victor Heerman

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

In the gold fields of the Canadian Northwest, a man is falsely accused of a crime and determines that a lookalike is responsible.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that she has a son Dick, once unjustly jailed by Judge Sturgis, but now working as a reporter while still maintaining an association with the Brownlow gang. Quarrelling with her stepmother, Edith leaves home, meets Dick and falls in love. While Dr. and Mrs. Allen (whom Edith met on the steamer) are visiting in the Sturgis home, the doctor's valuable radium is stolen from the safe, and Judge Sturgis is found murdered. Dick, though with Edith at the time, is accused of the crime. Finally, an old shoemaker confesses that he entered the house to steal the radium, with which to cure his crippled son, and witnessed the judge's slaying by the Brownlow gang. Dick is freed and finds happiness with Edith, and the doctor helps the crippled boy.

Dir: Jerome Storm

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

David Harrington plans to marry Betty Graves. He is an old-fashioned boy, believing in marriage, having children, and living a suburban life. Betty is more ultra-modern, and independent. When Betty gets a tour of the bungalow that David has built for them, she says it's cute but she would hate to have to live in it. The two break up and Betty goes back to a former sweetheart. Sybil, the wife of David's friend Herbert, has just has a row with her husband because he wouldn't buy her a new hat. So she takes their three children and hides in David's home, hoping to throw a scare into her husband. Now David tries to take care of the kids, hoping to forget his own troubles. Herbert phones David that he is coming over, but David tells his friend he has the measles. Meanwhile, Sybil's kids have gotten sick from eating too much taffy. So David calls Betty's father, who is a doctor. Betty comes over with her father, and David cooks up a scheme with the doctor to quarantine the house so that Betty will have to stay and help him take care of the children. Herbert arrives and chaos ensues when he discovers his wife and kids are there. Eventually, things get straightened out and David regains Betty's love.

Dir: F. Martin Thornton

In Paris an orphan cartoonist loves a man with a mad wife, who dies in time to prevent her marriage to a jilted Comte.

Dir: Herbert Blaché

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of An Old Fashioned Boy perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

French dancer Sigrid, diagnosed with a weak heart, is ordered by her doctor never to dance again. But when her dancing skills are needed by her lover's father to help quell a native uprising on the East Indian frontier, she determines to dance whatever the cost.

Dir: Raoul Walsh

Dave Henderson, an orphan who has become the beneficiary of a rich man's will, falls in with race-track crooks Martin Tydeman and Bokky Sharvan who bilk him out of his $100,000 inheritance. In retaliation, Dave steals the money from Tydeman's safe, but is caught and sentenced to five years in jail. In prison, Dave becomes friendly with Millman, who is about to be released, and reveals the money's hiding place to him, arranging to rendezvous at the end of Dave's term. Once released, Dave is hounded by members of Tydeman's gang as well as the police, who are waiting for him to retrieve his bounty. While taking refuge at the house of Capriano, an old bomb maker, Dave falls in love with the old man's daughter Teresa. However, Capriano sets a trap for Dave, who awakens in a drugged state to find the $100,000 missing. With the help of Millman and Teresa, Dave recovers the money, turns it over to the police and resolves to go straight.

Dir: Reginald Barker

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

Don Mateo, a swaggering Spaniard, tosses women aside without a care. But when he falls under the spell of the tempestuous Concha Perez, it is Don Mateo who finds himself tossed about.

Dir: Colin Campbell

Although separated at birth, Siamese twins Fabien and Louis de Franchi remain united emotionally. One day, Parisian Emilie de Lesparre arrives in their Corsican village with her father, and both brothers fall in love with her. Louis goes to Paris to study law and sees Emilie often, but Emilie loves Fabien who has remained in Corsica with their mother. While attending a dinner given by another admirer of Emilie's, M. Chateau Renaud, Louis is drawn into a duel with Renaud and killed. Back home, Fabien senses what has happened and journeys to Paris to avenge his brother's death. After he kills Renaud in a duel, Emilie finally confesses her love to Fabien.

Dir: J. Gordon Edwards

William Farnum is Drag Harlan, a tough cowboy vigilante. After learning about a gold mine from a dying man, he seeks his daughter (Jackie Saunders) as well as the gold. He falls in love with her, but the same gang that shot the old man is after the gold.