Best Mystery Movies of 1920

Inventor Harry Harper (Harry Houdini) travels to the South Seas, where there is buried treasure belonging to a girl, Beverly West (Lila Lee). Naturally, others are after the loot, and Beverly's father (Fred Turner) is being held captive by cannibals until she returns to them with a pearl that belongs to one of their idols. The climax consists of Harper saving Beverly from a safe which has been lowered into the sea.

Robert Castleback is in possession of secret papers which could bring a certain prince to power under conditions which would make Castleback a ruling force in Europe. Master crook Arsene Lupin becomes aware of Castleback's bid for power and, in the interests of France, begins a search for the plans.

A bumbling would-be detective always seems to reach the wrong conclusion, but one day accidentally stumbles across a real crook, guilty of a real crime.

At a party thrown at the Metcalf estate, the Marquise D'Irancy's Sultana diamond disappears when the lights go out during a power failure. Suspected of the crime is William Kirkland, the wastrel son of the wealthy Kirkland family, but William's sister Diana comes to his defense. Aiding her in the investigation is Clamp, a wandering peddler.

Spaulding Nelson moves into an apartment after his uncle has been driven from it by the sounds of screams and whispers. Upon undertaking an investigation, he meets neighbor Barbara Bradford, whose sister Clara is being tormented by the recurring sounds of her dead husband Roldo's voice.

Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband.

Small town politician and banker Brent Warren (Robert McKim) is responsible for a murder, but only George Roan (Joseph J. Dowling) is sent to the gallows for it. Roan, however, is resuscitated after he is hung and proceeds to secretly haunt Warren's life. District attorney Cullen Grant (Roy Stewart) is sure that Warren was behind the killing and has him arrested. Warren's fiancee, Dare Keeling (Fritzi Brunette), also happens to the Grant's ex-sweetheart, and she believes in his innocence. Her brother, Larry (George Fisher), however, isn't so sure and he goes to work as Warren's secretary.

A thief known as The Hawk has stolen the treasured Garter from the British Museum. One of the men pursuing the thief is mistakenly thought to be The Hawk himself, and so must seek his quarry while himself being hunted.

A man and two women, suspected of stealing bonds, are traced to a country hotel. While Judith, one of the women, is out horseback riding, the other two, Walter and Vera, are arrested. When, during a storm, Judith is injured in a fall from her horse, Boone Pendleton comes to her rescue. Soon the river becomes impassable, and they are trapped in Boone's cabin, where the two fall in love.