''The Mystery Mind'' is a 1920 American

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

silent

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

film serial A serial film, film serial (or just serial), movie serial, or chapter play, is a motion picture form popular during the first half of the 20th century, consisting of a series of short subjects exhibited in consecutive order at one theater, gene ...

directed by

Will S. Davis William Senderling Davis (November 22, 1880 – November 19, 1920) was an American film director and screenwriter of the silent era. He was the son of David Jackson Davis and Elizabeth Ann Tees. He directed 36 films between 1913 and 1920. H ...

and written by John W. Grey and Arthur B. Reeve. An homonym novel is based on this film, also written by Grey. In the story a variety of weird assassins controlled by "the Mystery Mind," a disembodied voice who can command living people to do his bidding, threaten Violet Bronson, the daughter of an explorer, who they believe may know the location of the treasure of Atlantis. She is defended by her fiance Robert Dupont, a hypnotist, and her adoptive father who she calls "Doctor Daddy." The assassins include a hunchback, a faceless man called Phantom Face, Carl "the Wolf" Canfield, Vera "the Snake" Collins, "The Fox" and a strangler. A new weird menace appears in almost every episode, making this serial the one that likely included more villains in the cast than any other. The trail to the treasure leads to the Orinoco in Florida and there a weird civilization dominated by a three-eyed witch doctor is discovered, as is the treasure and the secret of the entity known as the Mystery Mind. The setup of the serial draws inspiration from

The Mysteries of Myra ''The Mysteries of Myra'' is a 1916 American silent film serial with episodes directed by Leopold and Theodore Wharton and starring Jean Sothern and Howard Estabrook. It was produced in Ithaca, New York by the Whartons and distributed by Pathé E ...

, a 1916 serial in which another young blonde heroine also subject to the mental control of a master villain is protected by a man with a romantic interest in her who also has a mystical side to him from a variety of weird threatening menaces, again, often one new threat or even monster per episode. One episode of Myra was actually entitled "The Mystery Mind." The episodes of the film were ''The Hypnotic Club'', ''The Fires of Fury'', ''The War of Wills'', ''The Fumes of Fear'', ''Though Waves'', ''A Halo of Help'', ''The Nether World'', ''The Mystery Mind'', ''Dual Personality'', ''Hounds of Hate'', ''The Sleepwalker'', ''The Temple of the Occult'', ''The Building Ray'', ''The Water Cure'', and ''The Gold of the Gods''.

Cast

* J. Robert Pauline as Robert Dupont *

Violet MacMillan Violet MacMillan (March 4, 1887 – December 29, 1953), was an American actress in Broadway theatre productions, vaudeville, and silent films. Early career MacMillan gained fame as the "Cinderella Girl"''New York Times'' Obituary. Dec. 30, 19 ...

as Violet Bronson *

Paul Panzer Paul Wolfgang Panzerbeiter (November 3, 1872 – August 16, 1958), known professionally as Paul Panzer, was a German-American silent film actor. He appeared in more than 330 films between 1905 and 1952. Biography Panzer was born in Würzburg. ...

as Carl 'The Wolf' Canfield * Ed Rogers as Carl Canfield * Peggy Shanor as Vera Collins * Saville De Sacia *

Edward Elkas Edward Elkas (February 8, 1862 – December 17, 1933) was an American film actor of the silent era. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1911 and 1926. He was born in New York City. On Broadway, Elkas portrayed a headwaiter in ''A Tale o ...

* Arthur Pierot * Baby Ivy Ward as Violet as a child

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mystery Mind, The American crime drama films 1920 crime drama films American silent serial films American black-and-white films Films directed by Will S. Davis Films with screenplays by John Grey Films with screenplays by Arthur B. Reeve Films about murder Films about hypnosis 1920 films 1920s American films Silent American drama films