The secret formula for the world's most powerful explosive has been stolen from the U.S. government. William Brown, a clerk who aspires to be a detective, has just received his badge from some anonymous Midwestern agency, and manages to get himself embroiled in the intrigue.
Bert LytellWilliam Brown
Ora CarewBarbara Musgrave
Sylvia BreamerHilda
DeWitt JenningsJ. J. Wallace
Theodore von EltzFrank Morton
The Misleading Widow is a 1919 silent film comedy starring Billie Burke as Betty Taradine. It was based on the 1917 stage play Billeted by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood. The film was produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It appears to be a lost film.
Returning to his father's cattle ranch after the excitement of serving in combat overseas, Bud McGraw becomes restless, and his father decides to send him to an old friend who commands the Border Police in Texas. On the way he meets Peggy Hughes, accompanying her Uncle Graham, a customs inspector, and he retrieves her hat from the rails of a train. At the headquarters, numerous scrapes and fights win him the admiration of, and friendship with, the men. Lazaro, a Secret Service agent, invites Mrs. Graham and Peggy, who are staying at the border station, for an automobile ride, and they are captured by bandits and held for ransom. Bud and his pals deliver the ransom and discover that Lazaro is the bandit chief. Lazaro refuses to release Peggy, but a jealous rival, Nita de Garma, causes his downfall and shoots him as the Border Police arrive to rescue the party.
Rich young Joan Hope is ashamed of how her father made his money--as a chewing gum magnate. While taking a train trip, she meets the Countess of Crex, a member of the Russian nobility--who is, in reality, a jewel thief.
Molly, a glamorous clothing model in New York, though yearning for a life of luxury, spurns the advances of her boss's son in favor of a shipping clerk, late of the backwoods.
Working as a wardrobe girl in a cheap traveling stock company, Mamie Judd secretly loves Jenks, the leading man, who scarcely notices the young girl. She saves Neal Selden, son of a small-town banker, from being accused of robbery and murder, acts committed by the company's manager and leading lady.
The manager of a small town hotel installs a cabaret in an attempt to achieve the standard set by restaurants in the large cities. His effort is ludicrous because of the fact that his talent is all recruited from the help in the hotel. Roscoe, the cook, is forced to appear in a dress suit and when Al St. John appears from the bar there is a lively rivalry between the two for the applause of the crowd. Mabel, the waitress, vies with a professional dancer from the city. Into this setting comes William Jefferson, a polished sharper, who takes the innocent Mabel by storm.
Daughter of an Eastern lumber king, Stephanie Trent travels in the guise of a schoolteacher to the logging village of Trentsville to search for "a real man." There she meets Jimmy Raymond, a young novelist posing as a local while writing his story. When Stephanie comes to Jimmy's cabin to report a supposed plot against him, he acts as though he intends to assault her. She nearly throws herself out the window but is stopped by Jimmy, who explains that he is working on a novel and merely wanted to determine a young girl's reactions. In retaliation, she orders that he be kidnapped and held in a nearby cabin, but remorsefully nurses him back to health when he is shot trying to escape.
Unattractive and poor Polly Gordon, is taken to the college dance by eligible Vincent DePuyster only as part of a fraternity initiation. Suitors flock to her, however, when she inherits half a million dollars from her aunt, but she grows cynical and dismisses them.
In this comedy-drama, May Allison plays Teddy Hayden, a very independent society miss. When her childhood sweetheart, Gerry West (Wallace MacDonald) takes her to a Greenwich Village cafe, she thinks she's found where she belongs. So she spends all her time there and gets herself in a load of trouble.
A lost film. Teddy Drake is a pleasure-seeking aristocrat who ends up expelled from his exclusive Fifth Avenue club for playing practical jokes and other rambunctious antics. He decides to reform his selfish ways and boards a train heading heading for the Southwest.
Young Edyth Vail, believes her fiancé Allen Morris may have committed a murder, asking Ashton Kirk to investigate the crime. The fiancé admits he went to the David Hume's home to retrieve plans for a submarine, invented by his scientist father and stolen by the murdered man, but Allen claims he left the home before retrieving the plans. Kirk uses a train conductor's punch ticket to discover the identity of the murderers, one of whom is mute, and sets a trap to apprehend the suspects.
Four wealthy young men, Larry Van Cortlandt, Castleton, "Fatty" Harriman and Payne, become intoxicated in a cabaret where munitions maker Stanhope Shelton is giving a party for his daughter Natalie. Larry is attracted to Natalie, but he is ejected with his friends before he can secure an introduction. Plainclothes detective Hogan vows to capture Larry, who seeks asylum on his yacht with his friends. After the crew quits, Larry and his friends handle the boat. The next morning Castleton and Payne place a "for hire" sign on the boat and the Sheltons engage it. Larry teaches Natalie to steer and runs into several boats in the process. Four people in the Shelton party turn out to be burglars and rob the other guests. Meanwhile two other crooks rob the Shelton mansion. Larry manages to capture all the crooks at the Shelton home, and he wins over both Natalie and her father.
Frank Perry's wife Helen is away visiting her mother, and he uses this "free time" for a night of drinking at a nightclub. Unfortunately, when he tries to return home, he enters the wrong house and is nearly arrested When Helen comes back he tells her that the "incident" was actually an initiation rite of the Masons, knowing that his wife has always wanted him to join the group. She excitedly tells her father about Frank's becoming a Mason, since her father is also a Mason. What neither she nor Frank know is that her father has actually been doing the same thing Frank is--pretending to be a Mason when he actually isn't. Complications ensue.
A reporter and a detective team up to solve the murder of a nightclub singer who had been involved in a divorce scandal.
Hiram, a country youth, is in love with Sallie. They go fishing and Sallie falls into the water. Hiram cannot swim, so he runs to the road and stops an automobile, driven by Alfred, a city chap. The latter rescues Sallie, and she feels grateful to him. His attentions to Sallie are not displeasing, and Hiram becomes insanely jealous.
Extra-marital fun and games at a convention of the Honeywell Rubber Company in Atlantic City. President J.B. Honeywell is to choose a new company sales manager. T.R. Kent and George Ellerbe are two salesmen who both want the job. However, they both get into trouble: T.R. is discredited when jealous saleswoman, Arlene Dale, interferes with his attempted seduction of Honeywell's daughter, Claire, and George attempts to seduce Nancy Lorraine. The position of sales manager is bestowed upon a drunken employee as a bribe after he catches J.B. about to visit "Daisy La Rue, Exterminator." Considered a lost film.
A man breaks into a flat, startling the occupant. They argue about the new girlfriend of the 'burglar', who's come to get her stuff. Then a third man bursts out of the cupboard...
A detective saves his boy assistant from a bank swindler after escaping a fire by overhead cable.
Ranch foreman Kerry has boarded with Kitty Tynan and her mother for five years in western Canada, his past is a mystery to everyone. He is actually an English aristocrat who lost all his money gambling and left the country in search of work. Kerry and his friend Horan own an option on property which crooked lawyer Burlingame is trying to secure. Burlingame's cohort Logan murders Hogan, and is caught and arrested. In the trial, Burlingame forces Kerry to admit his past, and succeeds in preventing Kerry from receiving bank assistance. When Kerry is shot, Kitty opens a letter from Kerry's wife that he had been carrying for five years, and cables her. Kerry's wife arrives and informs him that his last bet in England had turned out to be a $20,000 winner. Kerry is able to use the money just in time to foil Burlingame and secure the property, thus winning prosperity and the affections of his wife.
A DA's son gets involved in a drug-related murder, and it's up to his father and sister to get him out.