Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Intrigue (1916)

This wartime drama, written by Julia Crawford Ivers and directed by Frank Lloyd, stars Lenore Ulrich and C.K. Van Auker, with Howard Davies, Florence Vidor, Paul Weigel, Herbert Standing, King Vidor and Gustav von Seyffertitz.

Rogue inventor Guy Longstreet (Van Auker) has developed a war weapon that is touted, somewhat ridiculously, as a “wireless X-ray apparatus, which is expected to kill, with mathmatical precision, as a distance of twenty-five miles.” Nonetheless, the Secretary of War informs Longstreet that the American government will pass on purchasing the invention.

Countess Sonia Varnli (Ulrich), “whose patriotism brought her to the front, has exhausted herself in aiding the wounded and comforting the dying.”

Perhaps more motivated by the possibility of riches and fame, Longstreet presents his invention to the German government. Interested after a successful test, the Germans press Guy for an anticipated delivery but he must further develop a metal element that will withstand the intense heat of the weapon’s use and that element is only found in America.

Varnli is then pressed into service by her own country as a spy to obtain information on his invention from Longstreet, without raising suspicion.

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from a high-definition scan of archival 35mm film materials of varying quality from good to very-good held by the Library of Congress. No digital clean-up or image stabilization has been performed on the scan. Along with the expected amount of dust and speckling, the source material also has moments of nitrate decomposition, schmutz, emulsion chipping, and other print flaws. While the source prints are noted as 35mm material, the visual quality of some of them renders a soft image that is closer to a standard 16mm reduction print. The greyscale range, however, remains fairly open in shadows that contain more detail than is commonly seen in 16mm prints of the 20th century.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on piano by Ben Model.

The generous supplemental material includes audio commentary by Anthony Slide; two feature films and a reel of a third, The Majesty of the Law (1915), accompanied on piano by Makia Matsumura; and an 8-page insert booklet with notes written by film historian Alice Miller. For our notes on the other films collected into this edition, see our Ben Blair on home video and A Son of Erin on home video pages.

This companion release to Kino Lorber’s 2018 six-disc boxset Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers is highly recommended.

This review was updated in 2025.

This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on piano by Ben Model.

The generous supplemental material includes audio commentary by Anthony Slide, two feature films and a reel of a third, The Majesty of the Law (1915).

This companion release to Kino Lorber’s 2018 six-disc boxset Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers is highly recommended.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD disc edition is available directly from . . .