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Select two cult films to compare side by side.
The Sin Flood Synopsis
Stratton's café is a popular place with the people of Cottonia, a wealthy cotton town on the banks of the Mississippi, installs flood-proof doors as a safeguard against an overflow of the river; when a flood comes, it appears that the entire town will be submerged. Trapped in Stratton's cafe are Billy Bear, a young broker, and Poppy, a chorus girl with whom he has been in love. Also there are a street preacher, a tramp, a stranded Swedish engineer, a poor actor, a corporation lawyer, a grasping stockbroker, the bartender, and Stratton, the proprietor. Protected from the sweeping floodwaters, they are secure until the engineer announces that they will suffocate when the air is exhausted. Facing death, all of the characters reform, and uniting in brotherly love they confess their sins and prepare for death. When they decide to admit the floodwaters, they discover that the crest of the flood has passed, and all then revert to their former greediness, except Billy and Poppy, who are happily married.
The Tongues of Men Synopsis
Rev. Dr. Penfield Sturgis, of fashionable St. Martins-in-the-Lane, finds himself face to face with Jane Bartlett, a grand opera prima donna whose opera he has denounced on grounds of morality, and who comes to his very vestry room to make him "eat his sermon word for word." Out of the encounter a strange acquaintance develops, Jane Bartlett interested through vindictive reasons, the rector through the challenge to his church. She prevails upon him to visit the notorious opera, which but deepens his previous convictions, but meanwhile he discovers a surprising humanity in the woman herself. Just as it is beginning to dawn upon him that maybe he takes himself a shade too seriously, word comes that the Mayor has closed "Zaporah" on the strength of his own condemnatory sermon. Repentant, Sturgis decides to apologize in an open letter to the newspapers, at which his vestry and congregation, already perturbed by the ascendancy of the Bartlett woman, are up in arms. To preserve her dignity the young rector offers to marry her, and she accepts him, thus at last making him "eat his sermon word for word," as she had set out to do. But her vanity appeased, Jane Bartlett proceeds to make peace between her young rector and Georgine Darigal, daughter of the rector emeritus and formerly his fiancée, and the reconciliation assured, Jane Bartlett gracefully withdraws.
"The Sin Flood" holds a slight edge in general audience appreciation, but "The Tongues of Men" offers its own unique cult appeal.
Suggested Watch:
The Sin Flood