Draft:The Social Secretary

The Social Secretary is a 1916 silent film directed by John Emerson and featuring Norma Talmadge. It is notable for an appearance by the well-known director Erich von Stroheim in a supporting role. Tri-Stone Pictures edited and issued a re-release of the film in 1924.

Plot
Mayme is a stenographer who is finding it difficult to earn a living because all of her male employers keep coming on to her, putting her in difficult and even dangerous situations. She had to escape from her most brazen previous employer, a Portuguese count, by locking herself in his bathroom and climbing down the fire escape.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Peabody-de Puyster, a wealthy matron of a prominent family, is finding it difficult to keep a social secretary because they keep getting married and leaving service. Mrs. de Puyster always advertises for ladies who are well educated and of good family, but this time her son, Jimmie, a generally upright young man with the habit of drinking to excess, suggests that she also include the phrase "and extremely unattractive to men" in her advertisement. Mayme responds to the ad, and shows up for her interview looking as professional and unbecoming as she can. Jimmie assures his mother that she has no concern over losing this one to matrimony, and she gets the job.

Continuing to wear her dowdy disguise, Mayme quickly makes herself indispensable to the family. However, all is not well for her former employer, the Portuguese count. His lime importation business is suffering because of the war, and he has become desperate for capital. He begins courting Mrs. de Puyster's daughter, Elsie, but Mayme cannot tell her employer about his character without revealing her own secret.

One evening Jimmie returns home late at night, too inebriated to successfully pilot his key into the lock on the front door. He breaks a window, startling Mayme from her sleep. She creeps downstairs in her nightgown to dispatch the burglar, but is surprised to find Jimmie instead. Jimmie is equally surprised to discover that Mayme has been hiding her good looks, and attempts to manhandle her. She escapes, and in the morning brings her bags downstairs, convinced that she has lost yet another employer. Jimmie realizes that she is leaving on his account, apologizes for the previous night, and promises to keep her secret so that she will stay.

Mayme and Jimmie begin to sneak out together on day trips to their mutual benefit: Mayme gets to be herself for a while, and Jimmie enjoys a positive influence who helps him begin to change his ways. They are discovered by a gossip columnist, Adam Buzzard, who reports their clandestine affair in a local society sheet. Jimmie confronts Buzzard and threatens him against future publication of similar items.

Elsie announces that she is getting engaged to the count, and Mayme overcomes her earlier reservations and attempts to warn Mrs. de Puyster about bringing this man into the family. She does not heed her warnings, however: "What can a good soul like you know about men?" Knowing she has no other choice, Mayme attends the next family soirée dressed in and looking her finest. Mrs. de Puyster is aghast, but is intrigued by her secretary's assertion that she must show her what she knows about the count. After a little flirting, Mayme arranges for Mrs. de Puyster to walk in on the count attempting to seduce her. She immediately orders him out of the house, but not before the count bribes a servant to deliver a note to Elsie telling her that her mother has been listening to slander and forbids their marriage, so she must meet him that night in order to elope the next day.

Adam Buzzard, ever watchful, witnesses Elsie entering the count's apartment, and calls Mrs. de Puyster to tell her of the scandal. Mayme overhears on the upstairs phone, and rushes to rescue Elsie before she can be caught in flagrante. Remembering the fire escape, she climbs into the count's bathroom and waits for an opportunity. Elsie realizes her mistake in her choice in men on her own when her fiancé endeavors to enjoy their wedding night a day early. Mrs. de Puyster and Jimmie knock on the count's door demanding to be let in, and Elsie rushes into the bathroom to discover Mayme waiting for her. She bundles her out onto the fire escape, but delays to search the bathroom for a ring that Elsie dropped in her haste.

Jimmie breaks down the door to discover not Elsie, but Mayme in the count's company who, unwilling to betray her friend, can offer no explanation for her presence there. The next morning she prepares to leave, but before she is able to depart Elsie summons her courage and reveals her own part in the previous night's events. Jimmie proposes to the vindicated social secretary, and as her last official act places a new advertisement in the paper for her replacement: "WANTED--A Social secretary: must be well educated, of good family, and extremely unattractive to men."

Cast

 * Norma Talmadge as Mayme
 * Kate Lester as Mrs. Peabody-de Puyster
 * Helen Weir as Elsie de Puyster
 * Gladden James as Jimmie de Puyster
 * J. Herbert Frank as Count Limonittiez
 * Erich von Stroheim as Adam Buzzard
 * Nathaniel Sack
 * Nora Cecil as Spinster (uncredited)
 * Vivia Ogden as Spinster (uncredited)

Production and Availability
The Social Secretary was shot in three weeks at the Paragon studios in Fort Lee, NJ. It was originally scheduled to be released in July, but was delayed until September.

The film is extant.

Critical Reception
The Moving Picture World described the film as "[a] geniune high comedy, admirably constructed and handled with skill..." It noted the vivaciousness of the presentation of the story, praised Norma Talmadge for her exceptional character interpretation, and congratulated the rest of the cast for their unusually intelligent support.