Curated Recommendations Seeking the Same Brilliance as The Secret o...

Dir: Charles Miller

After his wife/model dies of starvation with her portrait unfinished, an impoverished artist meets another woman with a striking resemblance to her.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

Margot Hughes is a butterfly society girl who sells herself to the highest bidder. Her husband does not press his ownership "by right of purchase," and she misunderstands his delicacy and she things that love is lost to her. She goes to France to serve the cause of humanity. There they meet again and understanding comes. For the Program: A loveless marriage that turned out differently. - Moving Picture World, February 2, 1918.

Dir: Charles Miller

Jim Morrison, an English army officer who comes from a very old and prominent family, marries the ravishingly beautiful but unscrupulous Cleo, who has no qualms about using her sexual allure to get the luxuries she wants but that her husband can't provide. When Jim is sent off to war, Cleo embarks on a series of affairs, one of which results in her becoming the love slave of a German spy--the very spy that her husband has been assigned to track down.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

A homely young girl, lonely and unhappy because she alone of all the girls in her town does not have a soldier sweetheart, pretends to be the fiancée of a famous combat aviator. When the flyer's mother learns of the "engagement," she accepts the girl as her future daughter-in-law, just in time for complications to arise in the form of the truth.

Dir: Charles Miller

In a prologue, Wilhelm II is born into opulence to continue the Hohenzollern dynasty of his father Frederick III, while Woodrow Wilson is born into the modest manse of his father, a Presbyterian reverend who tells his wife that the boy must be brought up "in the fear of the Lord." Conrad Le Brett from Alsace-Lorraine is forced to fight for Germany because his land has been conquered. Conrad, seeing other soldiers take girls into a church to rape them, kills one who murders a baby, and is then shot and taken to a Brussels hospital run by famous nurse Edith Cavell. He and his American nurse, Amy Gordon, fall in love. After Cavell helps Amy escape the pursuance of General von Bissing, the German governor, von Bissing has Lieutenant Ober execute Cavell. Learning of the Kaiser's order that all unmarried women be given to soldiers so they can bear sons for the army, Ober returns to Alsace-Lorraine, where he earlier insulted Conrad's sister Vilma. Ober kills Conrad's grandfather and rapes Vilma. Conrad honors her dying request that he go to America and defend Alsace-Lorraine's reputation. He marries Amy and convinces President Woodrow Wilson that Alsatians should be allowed to enlist. Fighting with the "doughboys," Conrad kills Ober, and after the armistice, returns to Amy.

Dir: Charles Miller

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

In a squalid mining town in West Virginia James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination. Even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her. While Fay goes about with security and fearlessness, which causes the ignorant to regard her with almost religious respect, her inner life is in sharp contrast. She has secret haunts, where she hides, and in thought recreates fairyland. Her favorite retreat is a cavern formed by an old abandoned tunnel which she peoples with knights and princesses, gnomes and fairy guardians. The one thing lacking is the Prince. And one day he comes. The "Prince" is a hunchback, "Crip" Halloran, the son of the village drunkard, who stumbles into Fay's imaginary fairyland, and is at once endowed by her with every heroic attribute. Finally Fay's father passes away and Fay becomes a drudge in the hut of ignorant aliens, and the meetings between her and the Prince are few and far between, and "Crip" is almost heartbroken. Jack Rockwell, son of a rich mine owner, comes to look after his property. Chance throws him in contact with Fay, and he becomes infatuated with her charm and idealism. He is admitted to the kingdom and gradually dethrones "Crip," to the hunchback's bitter distress. In love and pity for Fay's misfortune, Rockwell secures a great oculist and an operation opens Fay's eyes to the harsh world that her fancy idealized. She sees her two devoted admirers as they really are, and shrinks with horror from the poor misshapen "Crip." Broken-hearted, the hunchback seeks the old cavern and with a revolver ends a life that holds nothing but hopeless misery. Rockwell and Fay visit their old haunt, and with years of love and happiness opening before them discover the body of the poor hunchback, who had once for a few happy hours reigned as a Prince in a fairy realm of a girl's imagination.

Dir: Charles Miller

While covering a sensational divorce case, reporter Janice Salsbury becomes disillusioned with the institution of marriage. Convinced that her impending marriage to fellow reporter Billy Williams will result in a loss of her freedom, Janice breaks her engagement and enters a period of Bohemian living. Her mentor, elderly Phillips Hartley, sadly watches as Janice's friends lose all respect for her and finally succeeds in effecting a reconciliation between Billy and Janice.

Dir: Charles Miller

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Great Victory, Wilson or the Kaiser? The Fall of the Hohenzollerns perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Young Polly-Ann works in a small town inn as a maidservant. A troupe of actors comes to town and the innocent girl falls in love with one of its members. Howard Straightlane is sent to the small town by his father, to work as a schoolteacher in hopes of smartening up the young man from his wild ways. Howard soon meets Polly-Ann and saves her from the unscrupulous actor, meanwhile Howard's father has discovered Polly-Ann is his niece and sends for her. Another niece, greedily tries to force Polly to give her, all of her share of the family fortune. Upon hearing this the father insists that Polly return and since she and Howard have fallen in love, his son is now forgiven.

Dir: Charles Miller

Vera Souroff, a young Russian girl, is seized on the street and dragged into a room where three officers of the Czar's guard have been dining. The lights are turned out and the girl is outraged. The crime is brought to the attention of the Czar. Vera cannot tell which of the three officers is the guilty man. The Czar orders Count Nicho, the eldest of the three officers, to marry the girl, and makes them all turn over their fortunes to her. They are then sent to prison. The revolution breaks out. Vera saves her husband at the risk of her own life, as she wishes to wring from him the name of the man that violated her. Nicho, now honestly in love with his wife, admits that he was her assaulter, and the couple clasp each other in a fervent embrace.

Dir: Charles Miller

When a distant Irish relative dies, a young American travels to Ireland to obtain his inheritance. He gets far more than he bargained for when a beautiful Irish colleen catches his eye.