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The Mystery of the Talking Wire
(1914) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by George Lessey
Cast: Ben Wilson [Detective Hamilton Cleek], Sally Crute [Gretna Hillman], Robert Brower [Police Superintendent Narkhom], Edward Earle [Harry Beachman], Julian Reed [the butler], Mrs. William Bechtel, Charles Sutton, Martin Faust, Elizabeth Miller, Charles Ogle
Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated, production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / From a screen story by Thomas W. Hanshew. / Released 27 January 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The third film in the “Chronicles of Cleek” series.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? When the body of a drowned man was discovered floating in the channel. John Beachman, the Government official in charge of the Docking Yard, telephoned at once to Scotland Yard. It happened that Cleek had nothing to do at the time and so, on the off chance of something interesting being connected with the case, he went down to the Dock Yard with inspector Narkom. As it turned out, something distinctly interesting was connected with the case. In the pocket of the drowned man was found a bundle of papers containing secret government information concerning the dockyard. The information contained in the papers was known to only two people, John Beachman and his son, Harry, who had acted as his father’s private stenographer. Since John Beachman’s record placed him above suspicion, Harry was arrested and Cleek was engaged to unravel the mystery. Sir Charles Fordeck, of the admiralty office, took temporary charge of John Beachman’s affairs. The next day there was a violent thunderstorm. After a vivid flash of lightning, Sir Charles’ stenographer sprang from his chair, complaining that he had received an electric shock from the typewriter. Shortly afterward the telegraph operator in a nearby hotel brought in a message he had received from an unknown source. To the amazement of Sir Charles, the telegram contained information he had dictated to his stenographer only an hour before. Cleek was summoned, and in a short time solved the mystery. Gretna Hillman, a young foreigner engaged to Harry Beachman, and at present a guest of her fiancé’s mother, was actually a foreign spy. From each of the letters of the typewriter in Beachman's office wires led to Gretna’s room. Whenever a document was written on the typewriter, Gretna read the message of the wires. Then she telegraphed her information to a confederate in the nearby hotel who wrote the message out and gave them to the man who had been accidentally drowned on the docks. The flash of lightning killed the accomplice in the hotel, twisted Gretna’s wire with that of the hotel operator and shocked the man at the typewriter. Gretna escaped, but Gleek’s positive testimony released Harry Beachman and effectually stopped the leak in the government office.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 25 June 2020.
References: Website-IMDb.
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