The Essential Watchlist that Capture the Essence of When Rome Ruled: Cult Guide

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Trying to win the Three C's railroad line for his home town of Topaz, Colorado, Nicholas "Nick" Tarvin journeys to India to secure the famed jewel known as the Naulahka, which he plans to present to Mrs. Mutrie, the railroad president's wife. Nick's fiancée, Kate Sheriff, having graduated from medical school, also goes to India, but her aim is to provide the Indians with modern medical care. The Naulahka is possessed by the Maharajah, whose second wife, a dancer named Sitahbai, hopes to have her son, rather than the real prince, named as the heir to the Maharajah's throne. Sitahbai plans to kill the young prince, the son of the Maharajah's first wife, but Nick repeatedly saves him. After Sitahbai's plot to kill Nick fails, Nick threatens to hold the dancer captive until daybreak unless she gives him the Naulahka. Sitahbai reluctantly consents, but Kate, knowing that the loss of the jewel will mean Sitahbai's death, convinces Nick to return it to her. Kate and Nick return to Colorado without the Naulahka to find that the railroad tracks have already been laid through Topaz.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Peter, a social lion, suffering from ennui, visits a mysterious antique shop conducted by Ratoor, an east Indian, who has. through hypnotism, enslaved Cynthia, a beautiful young girl. Peter notices something wrong in the shop keeper's conduct and decides to investigate. Broadhurst, a millionaire, is in love with Cynthia through whom Ratoor plots to get his millions. Peter makes a nocturnal visit to the shop and discovering Cynthia imprisoned, tries unsuccessfully to liberate her. Ratoor, dominating Cynthia, compels her to accept Broadhurst's proposal and a weeding day is set. After the ceremony, she warns him against Ratoor and begs him to leave for his own safety. Broadhurst refuses, and keeping Ratoor, who has discovered their abode, under surveillance, arrives too late to save Broadhurst. And he, himself, narrowly escapes from being thrown into the river by Ratoor's henchman. Cynthia, falling by a ruse, to outwit her former master, is again in his clutches. Peter, still dubious, visits the shop of Ratoor, who, suspecting that he is watched, decides to make an end of Cynthia, who has transferred her husband's property to him. Concealed, Peter sees Ratoor and his gang disappear with Cynthia in the direction of the cemetery. The scoundrels, frightened by uncanny noises, forsake the half-swooning Cynthia who is rescued by Peter following in the darkness.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Larry Brice and his friend Rolliston are suburbanites. Rolliston invites Larry to stay downtown with him and take in the cabarets which Larry, with a pang of misgiving, consents to do, 'phoning home the usual excuse about business. The two friends "do" the various roadhouses, acquiring liquid refreshments and sundry joys en route, winding up finally in a Long Island Palace of Joy. When the confetti-throwing stage is reached, Larry, with splendid aim, bounces a ball of serpentine off the bald head of excitable "Sammy," director of the Italian orchestra. With murder afore-thought, the sensitive musician follows the devious route of the paper missile, arriving at the table of the two friends where reconciliation, wine and spaghetti supplants manslaughter. Larry 'phones his wife, Hetty, that business continues to press, forgetting, however, to shut out the strains of music from the telephone booth. She goes to bed disgusted and some hours later hears her husband arrive with "Sammy" in tow, insisting that the latter take the guest's bedroom. Then Larry promptly falls asleep, awakes in time for the 7:46 and hurries to the office without telling Hetty of his new-found acquaintance. Meanwhile, Carrie, the maid, dirty, slangy, lazy and incompetent, finds the bed disordered, and lifting the covers, screams at the apparition of the sleeping Sammy. Hetty guesses the truth. Sammy forthwith takes his departure, but gets only to the street, where the small boys pelt him unmercifully. Sammy returns and refuses to budge until a suit of clothes is provided. And Hetty, with a wife's freedom, expresses herself clearly to Larry over the telephone, causing that gentleman to rush out. C.O.D. a suit of street clothes for Sammy. In the interim, the suffragette club meets at the Brice home. And then things happen rapidly. The carrier arrives with the clothes; the maid refuses to accept the C.O.D.; Sammy frantically pursues him, beats him up, takes the clothes and is in the act of stealing softly into the house when the suffragettes discover him. He is mauled by four husky women, the constable is called and Hetty again rushes to the rescue, explaining to her friends that Sammy is no burglar. With suggestively-raised eyebrows, the suffragettes march home, making divers and sundry remarks concerning Hetty's conduct. While that unfortunate young woman is carried half fainting to her room, the constable arrives and arrests Sammy. From this plight, Larry, who has just arrived home, saves him. Sammy insists upon staying for supper and Hetty announces the expected arrival of her mother. This causes Larry to hurry Sammy out of the house. They meet Rolliston and in his big racer make another night of it among the roadhouses. In the meantime little Mrs. Rolliston visits Hetty with the information that her husband is also missing, and suggests that Hetty take vengeance. To this end Mrs. Rolliston addresses a love note to Hetty, purporting to come from "Jack," and while concocting their plot are interrupted by the arrival of Larry and Sammy. Hetty slips into a clothes closet, while Mrs. Rolliston slips out of the door. The latter promptly tells her husband, who 'phones Larry of the proposed joke, but forgets to tell him of the letter. When Larry meets Hetty in the dining room, she drops the fake note and he, in a sudden fit of jealousy, creates a family row. Upstairs Sammy has found a pair of Larry's pajamas and goes into the guest's room where the apparition of mother-in-law in bed causes him to flee softly to the nearest room, which chances to be Larry's. That young man meanwhile has gone to Rolliston for an explanation of the note. Hetty, anxious to make up, goes to Larry's room, put her arms around him, and to her horror discovers Sammy. A few minutes later when Larry is returning from Rolliston's, he is made suddenly aware of a terrific racket from the upper bedrooms of his home. Fearing for his wife he rushes up the steps, only to find that Sammy had gotten into mother-in-law's room and had been dealt with in the approved fashion. This settles Sammy, who hurries back to his beloved Broadway, swearing that the commuter's life is no life for him.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

A young Japanese woman named Yuki runs away and becomes a geisha girl in order to escape marriage to the lecherous Baron Nekko. Her brother's American friend, John Bigelow, falls in love with Yuki and marries her, but Ido, the marriage broker, who will lose a large commission if the wedding of Yuki and the baron is canceled, breaks into the American consulate, murders the consul, and steals the marriage certificate. When Yuki's brother arrives home from America, he is informed that she and John are living together unlawfully. To save her husband from her brother's vengeance, Yuki resolves to marry Baron Nekko, but Ido, having been mistreated by the baron, finally admits his guilt and returns the marriage certificate.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Marsh, a draughtsman in the gun factory of John Durant, is swindled by Edward Pinkney, Durant's general manager, out of the huge royalty to be paid should a gun of Marsh's invention prove a success. Pinkney loves Maisie, but is far outrivaled by Lieut. Somers, U.S.N. Somers also has invented a gun which he gives to be cast by the Durant Iron Works, and which, if successful, will do Pinkney out of his expected graft on the Marsh invention. Pinkney takes good care that the Somers gun is "killed" in the making. He then misrepresents Somers to Maisie and her father, and though Maisie loves the Lieutenant, she feels she must give him up. Accompanied by her mother and Pinkney, she goes in the Durant yacht for a cruise in Turkish waters, formally engaging herself to Pinkney. The Durant yacht hits a mine, and in the rush to leave her, Maisie is trapped in the wireless room. With the water surging up about her shoulders, and every means of escape barred she sends out the S.O.S. signal taught her by Lieut. Somers. The lieutenant, aboard a U.S. cruiser, protecting American interests in Turkey, gets the signal, and arrives at the side of the doomed ship just in time to make a sensational rescue. Here follow a mass of complications as the plot gradually resolves itself to its end.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

District Attorney Graham starts a crusade against the city's gambling houses. Judson Flagg, a lawyer, owns a notorious joint and knows that nothing can stop Graham once he gets his hand in. He then enters the fight armed with every weapon an unscrupulous man can employ. Through Mrs. Cuyler Hastings, a society woman who owes him a gambling debt, Flagg introduces Joe Hunter, his aide, to Aline Graham, daughter of the District Attorney. Hunter, polished, dashing and handsome, is seemingly devoted to Aline, and manages to marry her secretly. Later, in a raid on Flagg's place, Hunter shoots Graham and runs to Aline with the plea that unless she gives him money he will divulge the whole affair, saying that the marriage was a fake to aid some political enemies of her father. He leaves with her necklace, but she writes to him at Flagg's office begging him not to desert her. The gambler gets the letter and arranges an interview before a cunningly concealed camera, with the hope of getting her in a compromising position. How she is finally rescued and her fair name saved makes a charming ending to this drama.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Prologue: John J. Haggleton is the oil king of the world. In his first years while fighting bitterly for success his methods are unscrupulous. His wife suffers as a result and learns to hate his dishonesty. One day, finding written proof of a plot to burn up the oil refinery of a competitor, she leaves him, taking her baby boy and the condemning documents. Lawrence, a competitor of Haggleton, shoots himself as a result of Haggleton's manipulations and another, Moran, ruined, falls into misery. Haggleton's wife dies in poverty, leaving her boy, Philip, in the care of a poor old man named Gentle, who brings him up under an assumed name so that the boy shall never know his father's name. Gentle keeps the documents incriminating Haggleton. The story proper opens in Moran's home. Moran, who is now working in a miserable East Side bakery with his daughter, Jenny, a woman of the streets who has been ruined by Lawrence's son, but who has reformed, is in love with Philip Ames, who is really the son of Haggleton. He in turn is in love, not with Jenny, but with Margaret Lawrence, daughter of the man who committed suicide. She is a nurse in a hospital. Haggleton comes to visit the tenement in which the Morans live and there meets his son, who is calling on Moran. Haggleton does not reveal his identity. He discovers through Gentle the identity of his son and of the hatred his son has been taught to bear against the oil king. Haggleton is struck by the boy's speeches and when shown the horrible conditions of the people living in the tenement, he offers to help them with money, but his son refuses the money, saying that a man in order to make charity effective must not merely hand money to poor people but must understand them as well. Haggleton, in an effort to win back his son, decides to try living as a laborer. He sends orders for his yacht to sail, spreading the rumor that he is on board for a long cruise. Then he starts life over in a tenement without a penny. Haggleton starts work as a kneader in Moran's bake-shop and after studying conditions begins to build up an electrical bakeshop, which will later become a real bread trust. As they prosper, the home of Moran becomes happier, but Moran, inflamed by socialistic ideas, spread about by a few bakers who are thrown out of work by the electrical machinery, nurses anarchistic hatred against men such as Haggleton who ruined him. He doesn't know, however, that Jackson is Haggleton. To this argument Haggleton explains to him that his bread trust may be hurting a few bakers, but benefits the whole East Side. Haggleton learns of the engagement of Philip with Margaret Lawrence. He tries to withhold this marriage as he has much greater plans in mind for his son, and in so doing discloses his real identity. Moran, infuriated, tries to shoot Haggleton, but Philip, who has learned to love him in the past months, stands between Moran and his father and receives the shot. He is taken to the Haggleton home on Fifth Avenue and nursed there by Margaret Lawrence. When his health is restored, Margaret announces her intention of leaving the house, for she thinks she can never bear to marry a son of the man who ruined her father. She is stubborn in her pride, but finally yields when Jenny comes to her and tells her that her own destroyer was none other than Margaret's brother. Margaret softens and henceforth Haggleton, Margaret and Philip devote their lives and huge fortune to the development of really useful charity.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Rozika is a Hungarian girl who can sing quite nice. She goes to the place known as the United States with her brother whose name happens to be Young Carl. Rozika marries a chap named Trevor and a predicament ensued after the Great War comes knocking at the door.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

During World War I, a group of German saboteurs plot to blow up an ammunition dump in New York City. A secret agent sets out to stop them.

Dir: George Fitzmaurice

Kept in seclusion by her alcoholic father, Peter McCormack, Innocent knows nothing of life beyond her own house in Mukden, China. Following McCormack's death, Innocent is placed in the care of his close friend, John Wyndham. John promises to protect the girl, but when the two visit France, he resumes his gambling habit, while she, awestruck by the glitter and excitement of the Parisian social scene, soon becomes infatuated with Louis Doucet, the handsome but unscrupulous owner of a gambling establishment. Louis convinces Innocent to run away with him to the Riviera, but John finally locates them in Nice and shoots her lover. Having fallen in love with his ward, John returns to China, alone and heartbroken. He attempts suicide but recovers from his wound, whereupon Innocent, who now realizes her love for John, follows him to Mukden and agrees to marry him.