Underground Favorites Mirroring the Impact of The Peddler of Lies: ...

Dir: William C. Dowlan

Mary Brenton, daughter of wealthy Anthony Brenton, marries a man her father doesn't approve of, and they become estranged. When she tries to return home, her father refuses to let her in. Her daughter Angele disguises herself as a Belgian war refugee and her grandfather, not knowing who she really is, takes her into his house--and eventually into his heart. However, trouble arises in the form of the Brentons' greedy housemaid, a clandestine German spy ring, and an American agent tracking them.

Dir: Tom Collins

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

When milk magnate Jacob Strauss is found murdered in his library, the guilt points to Strauss' secretary, Harry Gray, who the previous day was fired when his employer discovered that he was secretly engaged to his daughter Sybil. Arrested for the crime, Gray asserts that he arrived in time to witness the attack on Strauss by a masked man who escaped through the window. When the secretary's story is ridiculed because the window is sixteen stories above ground, Sybil appeals to Tex to take the case. After a long search, Tex summons a number of suspects to his office and accuses Blake, whose apartments are above those of the murdered man. It transpires that Blake, who held a grudge against Strauss for losses he suffered in the milk pool on the exchange, killed him and made his escape by means of a rope. Thus exposed, Blake leaps out the window to his death, clearing Gray of guilt and freeing him to face a happy future with Sybil.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

Wade Hildreth is sent to New York from London to receive a diamond necklace for Lady Gwendolyn from the jeweler Arabin. A gang of crooks led by Pete Fielding, known as "The Shadow," plans to keep Hildreth from going to Arabin's until they have robbed the store. Actress Morn Light, whom the Shadow loves, agrees to entice Hildreth to her apartment to be imprisoned. When she warns Hildreth because she wants to avenge her father's death, which was caused by the Shadow, the Shadow overhears and captures them both. With large numbers of shoppers in the store, the gang takes the necklace, other valuables, and the customers' possessions. Discredited Detective Tyron follows the gang's getaway boat and arrives with the Marines in time to stop the Shadow, against whom his gang is mutinying, from attacking Morn Light. The gang is captured, the Shadow jumps overboard, and Hildreth returns to England with the necklace and Morn Light, now his bride.

Dir: Frank Lloyd

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

Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband. She finds this out, but does not know he is bent on vengeance. She is inveigled to go to Turner's apartment, where she meets Turner's former "flame." One of them leaves the apartment which is "Room 13." Returning from the West, Ramsey is taken to an adjoining room by Bruce, and listens to a conversation in "Room 13" between a man and a woman. He is convinced it is his wife's voice. Maddened he rushes to the room and batters down the door. He confronts Turner and shoots him. At the trial Ramsey will go free if his wife confesses she was in the room She does and he is acquitted. A reconciliation follows. - Moving Picture World 1920

Dir: Tom Collins

When the body of Wall Street broker Norman Temple is found dead in his office, the police arrest contractor James Borden for the crime on the testimony of Temple's secretary that Borden had threatened her employer over an unpaid note. Also under suspicion is Temple's Japanese valet, who quarreled with his employer the day before the murder. Tex, a detective, enters the case, following his own leads which prove the valet innocent. Tex finally deduces that Minkin, one of Temple's clerks, shot his employer when he interrupted the clerk robbing his safe. With Tex's revelation, Minkin's room is searched, the stolen bonds found and Borden is freed.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Woman in Room 13 perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Orphan Mary Wade is the ward of a family of farmers who keep her busy with drudgery. When Mr. Jenkins, the head of the household, makes advances to Mary, she flees to the city with her dog Zippy and lands in court for imitating a beggar who pretends to be blind. Harry Disbrow, a young millionaire in court for drunkenness, takes Mary home to his family, who take her in as a servant. Mr. Disbrow, a trust officer, has a partner, Horton, who has been stealing from the firm and who wishes to have his daughter Maud marry Harry to minimize the consequences of his crimes. Desperate to shore up his business, Disbrow demands that Horton reveal the whereabouts of certain securities, which fall out of Horton's pocket during the course of the confrontation. The struggle between the two men is resolved when Mary crashes a vase over Horton's head. Taken to the heart of the Disbrow family, Mary wins Harry's affections as well.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

Clarence Webb, manager of the High Bluff Mineral Springs, has long doped the spring with lithia, sulfur, etc., to attract wealthy patients who imagine that they have aliments. The county health officer is aware of the fact, but as the county is benefited by the larger number of hotel guests, he holds his tongue. He has also another reason for keeping quiet, as he is attracted by Cornelia Wrigley, the aunt of Gladys Saunders, who owns the spring. Cornelia is also aware of the drugging of the spring, but she considers the end justifies the means, as the business provides a nice income for her niece, Gladys, who would have nothing without it. She jollies Dr. Perkins to keep him silent, but she prefers old "Doc" Jenkins, the clerk of the hotel, who also admires Aunt Cornelia. Gladys has lately returned from college and knows nothing of the methods used to obtain business. She knows her father's wishes were for her to marry Clarence, but she has given the matter no thought, as she is sorrowful over her father's death. A retired capitalist, Mr. Harron, and his daughter, Selma, who is in love with her father's physician, Dr. Sherwood, come to the spring hotel and an attachment springs up between Gladys and Dr. Sherwood, much to the chagrin and jealousy of Selma and Clarence. Clarence at once urges Gladys to marry him, but she refuses. He then tells her that she owes everything to him, that the springs are not naturally medicated and that he is the only one who can carry on the business successfully. She is horrified at the deception and still refuses him. He afterwards tells Aunt Cornelia he will tell all the guests she is defrauding the public. Terrified, she tries to persuade Gladys to listen to him. Clarence is then discovered putting ingredients in the water by Dr. Sherwood, who accuses him of defrauding the public. Clarence tells him that Gladys would lose all her property if it wasn't for the deception. Dr. Sherwood disagrees and tells him that the only real cure is diet, exercise and pure spring water; that he could effect cures, without the deception. Gladys, who has entered unobserved, promises to back him up if he will try his plan. Clarence in revenge tells the guests of the deception and they all prepare to leave. Dr. Sherwood, determined to keep them there and give his plan a trial, knows the only way to do so is to quarantine them. He has Clarence, who is about to leave town, locked in an old ice-house and tells the guests Clarence has smallpox and that they are quarantined. He stations guards outside the doors and windows and no one is allowed to leave the house. Many laughable difficulties with his eccentric patients present themselves to Dr. Sherwood, but the final catastrophe occurs when Selma, who is jealous of Dr. Sherwood, learns that Clarence hasn't the smallpox. She bribes one of the guards to send for the health officer and constable and they release Clarence, who at once tells the guests of the false quarantine. The guests have become much benefited by Dr. Sherwood's treatment, and when he asks them if they will stand by him instead of taking sides with the man who would allow them to remain invalids for life, they all rally to support Dr. Sherwood. As the Doctor could prove that Clarence defrauded the public for years, no one is arrested but poor Weary, the tramp, who, without clothes and food, has been locked in the house and has been dodging everyone until finally caught. He tells the constable disgustedly, "You couldn't find anyone else to arrest, so you arrested me." The path of true love appears smooth to Gladys and Dr. Sherwood as the business seems an assured success.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

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

Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that she has a son Dick, once unjustly jailed by Judge Sturgis, but now working as a reporter while still maintaining an association with the Brownlow gang. Quarrelling with her stepmother, Edith leaves home, meets Dick and falls in love. While Dr. and Mrs. Allen (whom Edith met on the steamer) are visiting in the Sturgis home, the doctor's valuable radium is stolen from the safe, and Judge Sturgis is found murdered. Dick, though with Edith at the time, is accused of the crime. Finally, an old shoemaker confesses that he entered the house to steal the radium, with which to cure his crippled son, and witnessed the judge's slaying by the Brownlow gang. Dick is freed and finds happiness with Edith, and the doctor helps the crippled boy.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

Jack Bennett has been leading a gay life; his father has just received a bill from one of the café proprietors for damage committed by his son and others of a party the night before. He summons the young man and proceeds to lecture him soundly, stating that in the college career upon which he is about to start, his allowance is to be $20 per week. Jack's fiancée is Irma Brentwood, the daughter of his father's partner in business. She, however, prefers Bruce Howard, an upperclassman in the college. It is the plan of the fathers that their children shall marry when Jack finishes college. At school Jack and Bruce are bitter rivals and belong to opposing Greek letter fraternities. Jack is stopping at Mrs. Blanding's boarding house. In Mrs. Blanding's employ is little orphan girl Daisy Woods, who conceives a violent admiration and semi-love for Jack. He scarcely notices her, although he is friendly when by chance he meets her. Jack and his frat brothers plan to attend the theater, but find that the opposing fraternity, including Bruce Howard, have taken possession of the theater and that there is nothing left for them. Howard's crowd starts a rough-house, which ends in their being driven from the theater with a fire hose. Jack and his boys, entering by the stage entrance, arrange with the girls to visit the frat house for a little evening, no evil intended. Disgruntled, Howard's crowd learns of what has happened and of how the other fellows have put it over on them, and they plan to inform the dean of the college. Jack's friends learn of this bit of treachery and smuggle the girls out of the house, while, to cast off suspicion, half of the fellows masquerade as girls. Howard, however, is determined to have revenge, so he arranges with one of the girls a scheme to humiliate his rival. He bribes the girl and smuggles her into Jack Bennett's room at the boarding house, being observed, however, by little Daisy Woods. Jack returns and finds the woman in his room. Jack is expelled and his father disinherits him. Jack is brokenhearted, but acting on the advice of little Daisy Woods, resolves to be a man and make good. Jack, with an eye to the welfare of his little friend, writes a note to his father, explaining that Daisy knows the truth and can explain all. Daisy arrives at the home of Jack's father and tells her story to both his father and his fiancée. His fiancée is apparently unaffected, but the father is repentant and offers forgiveness to his son through Daisy. Jack rejects the offer, stating that he has decided to make good unaided. Mr. Bennett, Jack's father, and Mr. Brentwood, Irma's father, are figuring on a large government contract bid. One evening when calling upon Irma, Bruce Howard sees papers upon which the two fathers have been working lying upon the table, and he at once realizes their value. He slips them inside his pocket, being observed by Daisy, who is acting as Irma's maid. She succeeds in securing the papers without his knowledge and, knowing of their great value, plans to give them to Jack. Jack realizes the value of the papers, and securing an advance from his mother, who has always been his friend, he succeeds in underbidding Howard, as well as his father and partner. He is re-established in the eyes of the fathers, by thus saving the contract. The true story of Howard's duplicity comes out. Irma's father again offers her to Jack, who coldly turns his back upon her and places his arm about the little orphan, Daisy.

Dir: William C. Dowlan

After complaining about her dull life, shop girl Sally Manvers falls asleep on the roof of her apartment. Drenched from a downpour, Sally awakens and finds the roof entrance locked. She enters the apartment of society woman Mrs. Standish and encounters Mrs. Standish's brother, Walter Arden Savage, opening the safe. Sally protects Savage from a burglar, and after learning that he and his sister plan to steal their jewels to collect insurance money, she agrees to keep quiet if they take her with them to Newport. Although Savage, Donald Lyttleton, and Trego, a Western millionaire, woo her, Sally, who becomes a secretary to Savage's wealthy aunt Mrs. Gosnold, tires of society life. After a detective arrives, Savage plots to have Sally, whom he thinks will squeal, kidnapped, but Mrs. Gosnold changes clothes with her and is abducted instead. Savage recovers her, and at a masquerade ball the thieves are revealed. Sally returns to New York disgusted, but Trego, who earlier rescued her from Lyttleton, follows. Sally accepts his proposal and suggests that they live on Riverside Drive rather than Fifth Avenue or in Newport.