Hand-Picked Alternatives Movies That Echo the Spirit of The Unguarded Hour: Cult Guide

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Brian O'Farrell (Snowy Baker), is an English 'new chum' who takes a job at an Australian cattle station. He is teased by station hands because of his appearance (including spats and a monocle) but he soon impresses them with his skills at riding and boxing. The station manager, John MacDonald (Wilfred Lucas), takes O'Farrell to Sydney to meet his daughter Edith (Kathleen Key) who is working in the slums. Edith is kidnapped by criminals after witnessing a crime but O'Farrell rescues her. It is later revealed he is the owner of the station.

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

When her baby daughter Eleanor is traumatized after her father perishes in a storm at sea, Mother Coutierre sends the girl to live with her aunt in Paris. Years later, Eleanor, now a successful model in Paris, is surprised by a visit from her elder sister Marie, who has come to hide the birth of her illegitimate child. When Mother Coutierre arrives and believes Eleanor to be the infant's mother, Eleanor continues the deception so that her sister can marry Pierre Bondel, a fisherman. Soon after Marie returns to her village of Normandy, her brother Jean is accused of murdering Raoul Bergere, a man of loose morals of the village. When Jean's conviction seems certain after witnesses testify that they heard him threaten to kill Raoul for stealing his boat, Marie confesses that she killed the rogue for fathering her child. Following her expose, Pierre takes Marie into his arms and promises to care for her and the child, and Eleanor's honor is at last vindicated.

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A simple country girl, brutally mistreated by her stepfather, awakens first the sympathy, then the love, of The Boy. The Spider, who lusts after The Girl, makes a bargain with the stepfather and takes her to the city where, kept prisoner, she is soon broken in health and spirit. Cast out and near death, she is taken in by The Boy. Following the demise of The Spider, The Boy takes her to church, where he prays, and after many hours she is restored to health.

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

When famous opera singer Elinore Duane undergoes an operation on her throat, she has a series of ether-induced visions. In one, she is transported to ancient Rome where she appears as a much-admired woman in love with Paul, a young heretic, and at odds with Lutor, the high priest. To save her love, she poisons Lutor with her ring. After several other visions which involve variations on this love triangle, Elinore awakens to discover that Lutor is actually her doctor, Sascha Jaccard, and that Paul is the son of a friend who has come to visit the recovering prima donna.

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A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

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In Alberta, Canada, a Cornish emigrant unmasks a rustler posing as the girl's "blind" father.

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

John Haynes, known as "Hardwood," is a boss lumberjack in the great Northwest woods. During a Saturday-night revel with his pals, he receives a letter informing him he has inherited a modest shop in New Orleans from his late uncle. He has no idea what that means, but he travels to New Orleans to take over his new business, and is dismayed to learns he is now the proprietor of a shop that sells petticoats.

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Buckskin Hamilton guides a wagon train across the wasteland, caring well for the pioneers he escorts, but hoping to solve the murder of his brother by one of the travellers.

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After losing his money and horse in the trail town of Chloride, Arizona, in a crooked faro game run by Wes Prentice, the owner of of the local land company, cowboy Careless Carmody becomes sheriff of Chloride. Unknown to Carmody, Prentice is selling land that has no titles to naive settlers, then reselling the land to other buyers. After saving pretty young Ruth Fellows from the unwanted attentions of a local ruffian, Carmody finds himself more and more attracted to her. However, things take a turn for the worse when Prentice has Carmody serve Ruth with papers throwing her off the land he has just sold her. Complications ensue.