Million Dollar Mystery (Silent) (DVD)

"The Black Hundred" is a secret society that has existed for centuries composed of the most ruthless criminals in the world. Twenty years ago, one of their number - Stanley Hargreave - escaped and went into hiding. The villains have been searching for him ever since, and their newest operative, Jim Norton, may have just found him. Hargreave is dying, and wants to leave his million dollar fortune to the daughter he gave up for adoption years ago. The deadly cabal dispatch their goons to sabotage the father-daughter reunion and take the money for themselves. Little do they realize that Jim Norton is actually an undercover agent for the Secret Service and plans to turn the heist into a sting operation that will bring the Black Hundred to justice once and for all.

The Million Dollar Mystery was the last of several silent films that co-starred real-life husband and wife James Kirkwood and Lila Lee. James Kirkwood began his career in D.W. Griffith pictures such as A Corner in Wheat (1909) and Home, Sweet Home (1914). Moving behind the camera, he became a favorite of Mary Pickford's, directing her in Cinderella (1914) and Fanchon the Cricket (1915). Despite this, he would continue acting well into the 1950s. The lovely Lila Lee was groomed by Paramount to replace their recalcitrant star, Gloria Swanson. She eventually found fame starring opposite two silent screen legends, Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (1922) and Lon Chaney in The Unholy Three (1930). The product of their union, James Kirkwood, Jr., would become the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Chorus Line. Although they both claim to be adapted from a novel by Harold McGrath, Million Dollar Mystery bears little similarity to the earlier 23-chapter movie serial of the same name, produced by the Thanhouser Film Corp. in 1914 and now considered lost.

• silent films