The Secret Game (1917)
Director:
William C. de Mille
Writers:
Marion Fairfax (scenario), Marion Fairfax (screenplay)
Stars:
Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Holt, Florence Vidor
Even popular Japanese leading man Sessue Hayakawa was swept up into the distinctly occidental intrigues of WWI in William C. DeMille's The Secret Game. Flying in the face of the "Yellow Peril" scare fomented by such reactionaries as William Randolph Hearst, the film cast Hayakawa as heroic Japanese secret service agent Naru-Naru, whose job it is to escort a U.S. Navy convoy through treacherous Russian waters. Naru-Naru and his American counterpart Major Northfield (Jack Holt) both fall in love with Kitty Little (Florence Vidor), a Yankee girl who has been forced into collaboration with the Germans. Ultimately, Kitty is saved from her captors by Naru-Naru, who sacrifices his own life for the sake of the Red, White and Blue. The Secret Game was one of four films in which Sessue Hayakawa co-starred with Florence Vidor, and one of three in which Vidor was teamed with Jack Holt.