Summary
Moonlit pistons cough, a country road swallows two eloping silhouettes—Helen Moore, porcelain-boned heiress, and Raoul Kent, politico-nephew whose appetites run darker than engine oil. A suburban hotel becomes purgatory: behind its lace curtains the city’s puppet-masters pick the next district attorney while, two floors below, Raoul’s hands turn bestial. Hugh Graham—once Helen’s promised, now the Boss’s anointed—shatters the parlor door, meting out a savage rescue that stains the carpet with rumor instead of blood. Gregory, the spurned candidate, pockets the scene like a dagger. Twelve months of exile in Washington’s gilded parlors do not heal Helen; they merely drape her in silk and set her on Senator Foote’s opera box where Hugh, believing her traded for influence, tastes betrayal. Raoul, bloated and desperate, spider-crawls through a library window to filch state secrets; Hugh shadows him, a struggle, a gun-crack, a body slumps, and Helen’s scream splits the mansion again. Headlines bloom: the Congressman-elect once beat a man over a woman, now he stands over another corpse with the same woman present. An editor, ink under fingernails, unpicks the gossip-knot until truth glints—Helen was never currency, Hugh was never villain, Raoul was always entropy. Dawn after election, the Capitol dome catches first light while Hugh and Helen, married and marrow-tired, choose a modest brick row house where rumor cannot echo.
Synopsis
Helen Moore and Raoul Kent, nephew of Senator Foote, plan to elope. Raoul's machine breaks down on the road, and they go to a suburban hotel until morning. At the hotel, the "Boss" is holding a conference to decide upon the candidate for the office of district attorney. Hugh Graham, the Boss' choice, and once betrothed to Helen, enters the hotel to attend the conference. Passing the parlor, he hears Helen's scream. Raoul is making ugly advances to her, but Hugh breaks down the door, and beats Raoul for his viciousness. As Hugh emerges from the room with Helen to take her home, Gregory, defeated by Hugh for the candidateship, spies them. He draws his own conclusions from the scene. Helen, wrecked in health by her experiences, begs her father to take her away. He brings her to Washington to the home of his chum, Senator Foote, where she is to act as companion to Mrs. Foote. Hugh has, meanwhile, declined the nomination, under the threat from Gregory of exposure of the incident with Helen on the night of the Boss' conference. A year has passed and election time draws near again. Called on business to Washington, Hugh sees Helen, gorgeously gowned, at the theater with Senator Foote. Unconscious of the Senator's identity, he follows them home, for his suspicions have been aroused. Raoul, leading a life of dissipation, climbs into the window of the Senator's library, bent on a mission to steal some important papers. Hugh, seeing him, senses a robbery and follows him into the house. In the struggle, Raoul is killed. Helen and the Senator rush into the room, and Hugh's suspicion of her seems to be confirmed. This time, Hugh accepts the nomination for Congress, and Gregory prepares to make public what he saw at the suburban hotel. He gives his story to the daily newspaper. The editor of the paper, anxious to ascertain the truth of Gregory's accusation, begins an investigation of the case. His efforts serve to clear up the entire story. Hugh discovers how Helen came to enter the Senator's household. Election day is over. Congressman Hugh Graham is making preparations to take up his duties at Washington, and foremost among these duties is the choosing of his home, so that he may spend his days at the Capitol, together with his wife, Helen Moore Graham.
Review Excerpt
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A 1918 one-reel whirlwind that feels like a Victorian triple-decker hurled through a fan blade—The Truth About Helen crams elopement, political skulduggery, near-rape, blackmail, burglary, murder, and a last-minute marriage into a scant twenty-minute sprint. Yet, miraculously, it breathes; its characters sweat, tremble, and carry bruises that outlast the intertitles.
Director William Addison Lathrop, better known for society dramas than cliff-hangers, here weds vamp tropes to the reformist zea..."
