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Exploring the artistic bravery in The Duplicity of Hargraves is a journey into United States cinema, the thematic layers of this 1917 classic invite a wider exploration of the genre. If the cast impressed you, these next recommendations will too.
With Thomas R. Mills at the helm, The Duplicity of Hargraves became to reinvent the tropes of cult cinema for a global audience.
Old Major Pendleton Talbot of Mobile moves with his daughter Lydia to Washington, D.C., where he works on his book of reminiscences about Alabama, while Lydia scrimps to keep up appearances. Although the young government clerks ridicule the Major's dress, vaudeville actor Henry Hopkins Hargraves, the Talbots' boardinghouse neighbor, cultivates their friendship and listens attentively to the Major's stories. When a new Southern play opens, the Major splurges and buys tickets for himself and Lydia. Hargraves, playing the lead, imitates the Major's dress, mannerisms, and speech, and delights the audience, while infuriating the Major. He castigates Hargraves, who leaves, to Lydia's dismay. Later, when the Major is broke and refuses to seek a loan, an old slave from the Talbot plantation, Uncle Mose, arrives and gives the Major $300 which, he claims, is payment for a pair of mules which the Major's father gave him. The Major soon finds a publisher for this book, and Lydia gets a letter from Hargraves revealing that he, as Uncle Moses, repaid the Major for his help with the role.
Based on the unique artistic bravery of The Duplicity of Hargraves, our vault has identified these titles as the most compelling follow-up experiences for fans of cult cinema:
Dir: Thomas R. Mills
When Willard Geddie is told by his sweetheart Ida Payne's fortune-hunting mother that Ida no longer wishes to see him, the heartbroken man leaves New York and accepts an official position in the small South American country of Coralio. He lives an idle life there until news arrives that the President of Coralio and his mistress, an American opera singer, are planning to abscond with the country's treasury. By mistake, Geddie captures the President of an American insurance company who is trying to enter Coralio with embezzled money, after which the criminal commits suicide. Meanwhile, Ida arrives in South America looking for Geddie, but she is erroneously identified as the President's mistress and refused permission to come ashore. A detective from New York later arrests the President and the opera singer, believing them to be the embezzler and his wife. Finally the confusion is cleared up and Geddie returns to New York with the stolen insurance money and Ida.
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Dir: Thomas R. Mills
The one was a venturer; the other an adventurer--the one a man who wanted to see adventure, but who had never been beyond the city limits; the other a man who had seen adventure in all parts of the world, and who assured the venturer that things were just as monotonous every place in the world as in the city. So they met, each seeking for the unconventional on a New York street, and dined together as men out of luck, with two cents between them--and still nothing happened. They both had credit at the hotel. Then into their lives came the feminine influence: a sweet girl who lived in a house which was irrevocably a household. The adventurer hesitated--he had yet to satisfy his longing for the incalculable. Suddenly, love changed the venturer into an adventurer, and settled the adventurer into a venturer.
Dir: Thomas R. Mills
Even though she's 17, Belinda is tired of being treated like a small child in the small Southern village where she lives with her father, Judge Lee. Out of frustration, she arranges a "growing-up" party, and makes her appearance dressed "to the nines", in a long, elegant gown with her hair and face all made up. That night an Sanford, an escaped convict, breaks into Judge Lee's home, bent on revenge for the judge having sent him to prison. However, both he and Belinda are in for a big surprise.
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Dir: Thomas R. Mills
When James Armitage, a wealthy young man, is jilted by Clare Wendell, he leaves for Burma after committing the care of his estate to his lawyer. Years later he is informed that Clare is a widow. His old love for her flames anew and he returns to find that the lawyer has absconded with half of his fortune and that his mansion has been sold to the father of Doris Athelstone. Armitage's love for Clare dies, and an investigation reveals to him that the lawyer is in reality the thief and the father of Doris, and that the young girl, who has not seen her father since she was a baby, is under the impression that he is an explorer. In his love for Doris, who is the sole occupant of his mansion, he keeps this a secret, but is impelled to disclose the facts to her when, entering his house for some papers, he is shot by Doris. He starts out to unravel the mystery and locates the father dying in Yucatan. The old man tells Armitage that he stole to keep his daughter from want, and forgiven, he dies happy. Armitage, returning, marries Doris, but keeps secret that her father was a thief.
Dir: Thomas R. Mills
After Mary Allen drops a blood-stained knife, Judge Robert Craigin's dead body lies next to her. Mary secures a secretarial position with Judge Bruce Craigin, the dead man's younger brother. Professor Galt, a criminal psychologist, and Detective Hooker believe that Mary committed the crime. Craigin and Mary fall in love and are married. Galt persuades Craigin to let Mary furnish their new home because a clue to the solving of the murder is the artistic furnishings of the room in which the murder victim was found. The similarity between the decor of the house and the crime room convinces Craigin that Mary murdered his brother, but Thomas Gray confesses to the crime. He had been in the room waiting to avenge his wife's wrongs on Craigin. When Craigin attacked Mary, she lifted her paper-knife and fainted, and Gray killed Craigin, leaving the murder weapon in Mary's hand. Mary and Bruce find happiness together.
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Dir: Thomas R. Mills
Dr. Hugh Loring, whose hobby is heredity, has evolved the theory that physical or mental peculiarities of children reveal the parents. The doctor's intense desire for children is only equaled by his wife's aversion. On the occasion of the doctor admonishing his wife for being friendly with an admirer she leaves him, and when her child is born she swears Ruth Carden, an employee of her husband's, who has accompanied her, to secrecy, so that she may keep from the doctor his greatest joy. Mrs. Loring dies, and Ruth returns to the doctor's office, leaving the child in the care of the nurse. Three years later the nurse finds it necessary to give up the child, and the doctor, who has fallen in love with Ruth, is stunned, for he believes that the child is hers. Dr. Loring subsequently learns that the child is his, and he and Ruth are married.
Dir: Thomas R. Mills
When Alice Winton's brother embezzles funds belonging to his employer, Benjamin Graves, a promoter of worthless mining stock, she saves him from arrest by signing over to Graves a hefty promissory note. Later Graves deliberately wrecks the mining company in which Alice's invalid father has invested his money, and the shock from the resulting bankruptcy, kills him. Alice marries Robert Burton, a noted criminologist who believes in the theory, "once a thief, always a thief," and the couple takes up temporary residence with District Attorney Jeffrey Miller. In Miller's safe are incriminating documents concerning Graves's illegal activities, and Graves, knowing of their existence, blackmails Alice into stealing them by showing her some compromising love letters to which he has forged her name. As Alice robs the safe, Ned, who has been arrested for larceny and is now being tested by the reform-minded district attorney, discovers her. After Ned hears of Graves's misdeeds, the burglar alarm sounds, and he and Alice are spotted. Casting suspicion on himself, Ned vows revenge on Graves and flees. Fearful, Alice goes to Graves's apartment, finds him dead just as the police arrive, and is implicated in the crime. At that moment, Rose La Vere, Graves's jilted lover, staggers in and, before dying from self-inflicted poison, confesses to the murder, thus clearing both Alice and her brother.
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Dir: Thomas R. Mills
Jacob Spraggins, veteran general of a breaker-boy-to-multi-millionaire campaign, is driven by a troublesome conscience into the ranks of the amateur Haroun al Raschids, who infest Bagdad-on-the-Subway. Donations to hospitals, charities and universities fail to bring him happiness. At last he traces his uneasiness to a piece of legitimate business whereby he swindled one McLeod out of property worth ten thousand dollars. Detectives find the grandson of McLeod, a delivery youth for a large provision store. To him old man Spraggins hands ten thousand dollars in bills. Impressed by the young man's insouciant independence, the money monarch makes further advances, even hints at the possibility of matrimony between McLeod and his daughter, Celia. But Thomas McLeod is already engaged to a parlor maid at a house on his round. Neither he nor Spraggins has any idea that the parlor maid is Celia, who has fallen in love with Thomas's whistling. She whistles, and the accomplishment has helped her from the social life of her father's financial class. Aided and abetted by Annette McCorkle, the romantic housemaid, Celia has donned cap and apron and set out to be loved for herself alone. She has succeeded. So the ten thousand dollar benefaction, having brought peace to the soul of the Caliph, proceeds to bring happiness to McLeod and Celia as well, for their financial way to elopement is now clear, and they go. Mr. Spraggins gives chase, but, recognizing the prospective bridegroom, adds his blessing. It would seem so far that this one benefaction had failed to harm the Caliph-ridden populace of New Arabia. However, a year later old Jacob Spraggins orders all his donations to charities canceled. The working girls can continue to work for all he cares. The sun must shine on the Sunshine Fund without the aid of his money. Celia has a child. The child, Jakey, must have an unprecedented fortune by the time he attains twenty-one. So Mr. Spraggins raises the price of all vinegar three cents. Moving Picture World, November 3, 1917
Dir: Thomas R. Mills
Returning from the war front, Captain Phoebe Plunkett accepts an assignment to apprehend jewel smugglers in pursuit of the Sultana diamond. On his mission, he meets Patricia Melton, who introduces herself as a French Secret Service agent also in search of the diamond. Plunkett is in love with Olga Karakoff, daughter of a wealthy jeweler, and he soon comes to suspect that Olga's father is in league with the smugglers. However, Patricia is the true impostor, and after she discovers that the jewel is encased in a locket worn around Olga's neck, she captures Olga and the diamond. Plunkett comes to the rescue and wins both Olga and a large reward for recovering the jewel.
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Dir: Thomas R. Mills
Mary Boyne, who made shirts at four dollars a week, had no place for love in her life - only despair and hate for the son of the man who had plunged her family into deepest distress. Peter Kenwitz loved Mary, but because he was a mathematician and a pessimist by trade, his love was as hopeless as her chance for happiness. Dan Kinsolving was the son of the man who ruined Mary's family. He loved Mary and gloried in her hatred for him. He set about moving the problem of turning her hate into love. He let X represent The UNKNOWN QUANTITY in life's greatest problem. Did he win?
View DetailsAnalysis relative to The Duplicity of Hargraves
| Film Title | Atmosphere | Complexity | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| An American Live Wire | Surreal | Layered | 95% Match |
| The Venturers | Gritty | Layered | 98% Match |
| The Girl-Woman | Surreal | Linear | 89% Match |
| The Girl in His House | Gritty | Layered | 86% Match |
| A Girl at Bay | Gothic | Linear | 93% Match |
This guide was algorithmically generated using the cinematic metadata of Thomas R. Mills's archive. Last updated: 5/13/2026.
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