Best Mystery Movies of 1917

AJ Raffles, a handsome jewel thief masquerades as a gentleman of society fitting in with well-to-do people. He dons a mask and waits for an opportune moment to steal belongings, usually some jewelry and to take advantage of unsuspecting women whether at an estate or aboard a passenger ship. Raffles knows secret passageways to aid his escape from capture such as disappearing into a large grandfather clock that is really a secret doorway. He even eludes capture by jumping off a ship and swimming to shore while women passengers fire pistols at him.

Fishermaid Marcia Manot finds an emerald which once belonged to a Norse queen and is cursed. Greedy American Silas Martin marries her, then sets her up for divorce. She kills him and weds his business manager Sterling, but a detective learns about Silas' death.

Clutching a dagger, a woman enters a room through velvet portiers and murders Nathan, scion of a distinguished family.

When, after three years of active service, ace detective Jerry Brennon is ordered by his doctor to take a rest, Senator Reed, Jerry's staunch supporter since he arrested two crooks burglarizing the Reed home, prevails upon the detective to stay at his cabin in the mountains. Warned that the cabin is haunted, Jerry's suspicion is aroused when a bullet whizzes past his head.

Police headquarters has been plagued by a series of robberies, culminating in the theft of a priceless necklace smuggled from Europe. The detectives are on the track of a gang led by master thief Ramon Mordant and his accomplice known as "the Face" because of his twisted and hideous countenance.

Jack Lane (William Stowell) has made an invention for photographing wild animals. It consists of a camera with a trigger -- when the trigger is stepped on by a passing animal, a flash goes off and the camera shoots the picture. Lane goes up to the mountains to try out his new contraption. When a recluse refuses to let him spend the night in his cabin, Lane goes to sleep out of doors, with the camera set up near by. In the middle of the night, he is awakened by the flash and the sound of gunshots. Trekking back to his own cabin the next day, he develops the picture, which is of a girl holding a rifle. He returns to the recluse's cabin where he is arrested for murder.

A "scientific detective" story about the attempted murder of a wealthy New Yorker in his mountain lodge is framed with a satire of Hollywood as the writer of the story comically tries to get the script read and accepted by a studio.

Naive Eileen Rodney (Dorothy Dalton) is duped by the high-minded talk of Raymond Moreland (William Conklin). But when she discovers that he wants to take her to India without the benefit of a marriage license, she balks and instead weds her guardian, John Harland (Thurston Hall). However, she had written some letters to Moreland, and these come back to haunt her when he tries to use them for blackmail.

On a voyage from Europe to the U.S., Desselway meets and falls in love with Diana Curran. Diana has a dark past, however -- she is married to Wrenshaw, a criminal known as "the Hawk." Diana got involved with Wrenshaw because she thought he was honest, and he keeps her under his thumb by making her believe she killed a man.

Louis and August Siever, the twins sons of a German father and American mother, are traveling in Europe when war breaks out. August joins the Kaiser's army, but Louis, a supporter of the United States, is practically made a prisoner in Berlin for a year while he tries to prove his American citizenship. After a violent confrontation with Louis, August steals his brother's passport and leaves for New York with Gerda Anderson, a German spy.

At the death of Count de Beaulieu, his daughter Jeanne learns that her father had been the arch-criminal known as The Phantom. The only other person who knew her father's identity was his lieutenant, Franz Leroux, who now demands that Jeanne marry him in return for his silence.

A playwright revives a murdered girl

Unknown to Judith Ralston, her brother Budd and his wife Vera are counterfeiters. In order to escape Fayban, a secret service agent, they leave Judith at a little town in Virginia. One day while out horseback riding, Judith is injured and rescued by Boone Pendleton, who takes her to his cabin. Later, she receives instructions from her brother to go to the Ralston house and destroy anything that she sees. Fayban, suspicious of the girl, wires Washington to shadow her.