The Essential Watchlist Similar Cinematic Experiences to This Way O...

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

The director believes he has a whale of a melodrama idea and after much pleading induces his company to stage the picture on credit. This they do. The director then takes the film to a motion picture buyer and tries to sell it to him. They go into the projection room and the picture is run off. It is a wild story, of a pretty girl, a black-mustached villain, a broad-shouldered hero and crooks that pass in the night. But somehow it fails to strike the pleasure of the prospective buyer. For he takes the film and throws it at the director. Entangled in the film, the director returns to his company, awaiting their pay. On the way the film catches fire and is burned up. Arriving at the studio, the director is assailed by his players and beaten unmercifully.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.

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

Dir: Lloyd Ingraham

While walking along the street one day, Arthur P. Hampton, an impoverished young doctor, and his chums, Stub Masters and Johnny Stokes, are persuaded to part with their last remaining funds by tag day solicitor Mary Jane Smith, with whom the doctor promptly falls in love. Doc's friends then hit upon a get-rich-quick scheme. Knowing that his Uncle George has promised a large sum of money upon his nephew's marriage, they persuade Doc to send out fake wedding invitations naming Mary Jane as the blushing bride. Uncle George, elated at the good news, writes to Mary Jane's aunt, Angelica Burns, an old sweetheart, to invite Mary Jane and Angelica to be his guests on an ocean voyage. Meanwhile, Mary Jane pays a visit to the doctor's office and, upon seeing the wedding invitations, becomes so flustered that she trips and sprains her ankle. Doc comes to her rescue and then begs her to pose as his wife. She agrees, but at ship-side, Stub and Johnnie confess all to Uncle George, who flies into a rage until Doc announces that he and Mary Jane have chosen a wedding at sea.

Dir: Richard Smith

Two female candidates for Chief of Police live across the hall from each other, and their political rivalry follows them home, leading to plenty of hi-jinks.

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

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: Henry Edwards

A millionaire bets £25,000 that he can earn his own living for six months.

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

Dir: Hal Roach

An American book salesman (Lloyd) is persuaded to go to the kingdom of Thermosa to impersonate the Prince. He is greeted by a peasants' revolt before the real prince shows up to claim his throne and princess. The revolution succeeds, and the American is elected president of the new republic.

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

The jealous husband suspects that his wife is fickle but cannot discover any evidence until the butler hands her a letter one morning. He snatches it from her, and only waiting to read "My Dearest Sweetheart," tears it up and storms about the room. The wife pleads with him, but he goes out and buys a revolver. The wife, changing her clothes, also goes out. The cook, spying the discarded dress across her mistress' bed, puts it on, in celebration of an evening with the butler. When the husband returns and sees, in the half-lit dining room, the cook with his wife's dress on, in the arms of a man, he draws his revolver and fires. The cook, though unhurt, falls to the floor. The husband turns in the hall just as his wife enters with a man by her side. The wife introduces her father to the trembling husband, who then realizes his mistake in not reading all of the letter which told of the parent's coming. The three go into the other room where the cook and the butler laughingly tell of the mistake in identity.

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

Dir: Jerome Storm

Ne'er-do-well Homer Cavender ventures to the city from Mainsville in an effort to find fame and fortune. Both elude him, and after clerking for two years, Homer returns home for a vacation. Impressed by his flashy clothes, the townspeople assume that Homer has achieved success. Attempting to win Rachel Prouty from his rival, Arthur Machim, Homer continues the deception by announcing that his employer, Kort and Bailly, has dispatched him to enroll stockholders for a proposed new plant to be built in Mainsville. Machim discovers the sham and denounces Homer as a crook. Meanwhile, Homer returns to New York, convinces his employers of the merits of his plan and comes home triumphant, with a proposal for both the new plant and for Rachel's hand in marriage.

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

A comic number, featuring two Irish characters. Their dress suits are stolen on the eve of a ball and each thinks the other guilty. They meet at the ball and a "rough house" ensues. This is entirely of the knockabout style of humor and makes only an average offering of the kind.