Het geheim van Delft (1917)

Annie and Lilly Vogels are the young daughters of Jan, a Delftware specialist who works as a foreman in a porcelain factory. Van Haaften is the factory’s director and owner. While their father, Jan, works hard on an improved process for making porcelain, daughter Lilly is busy with the housework. Her older sister Annie contributes less, as she is too occupied with her music and her relationship with Leo, Van Haaften’s son. Meanwhile, their cousin Willem Berg receives a severe reprimand for his carelessness at the factory. Because of their differences in social status, Annie and Leo have to keep their relationship strictly secret. Leo’s mother catches them together and immediately sends Annie away. When the head of the wealthy family is informed, he wants to prevent a scandal and sends Leo to America for an indefinite period. Just before leaving, Leo secretly arranges to meet Annie to end their relationship. Heartbroken, Annie returns home to pack her things and leave for good. Six long months pass. Jan’s research into a new process for painting Delftware seems fruitless. To pay the rent, Lilly gets a job as a florist. Annie is also having financial difficulties. She is taking expensive piano lessons and, to pay for them, works as a pianist in a nightclub. Lilly visits her and reveals that their father is on the verge of discovering the secret of old Delft glaze. Their corrupt cousin Willem eavesdrops and hatches a nefarious plan. He confronts Jan, but to no avail, since Jan’s experiments have ultimately failed because of financial constraints. Unable to bear seeing her father so distressed, Lilly visits Minny, a daughter of the Van Haaften family, to beg for money so that she can help realize the process for making Delftware as her father envisions it. The process requires expensive platinum as an ingredient. Her visit to the Van Haaftens is unsuccessful: the director himself is in serious financial trouble. At one point, Annie is discovered at the nightclub and an impresario offers her a contract for a concert tour. Meanwhile, Leo returns from America and asks his father for permission to see Annie again. Jan asks Van Haaften for a loan, but Van Haaften considers his experiments ridiculous and dismisses him. Jan is on the verge of giving up when, in the park, he finds a fortune on a dead man—a suicide. An accompanying letter says that the honest finder may keep the money. Jan can now use the money he found to buy platinum and continue his experiments. Meanwhile, Van Haaften’s factory has gone bankrupt. Unable to cope with this setback, Van Haaften commits suicide in his office during the night. That same night, cousin Willem breaks in to find out the secret of Delft. He sees Van Haaften’s lifeless body but raises no alarm; he only takes the remaining 3,000 guilders from the factory, which he finds in Van Haaften’s pockets. He also conceals Van Haaften’s suicide note. The next morning, Jan finds the body. He calls for help, but the police suspect him of murder. Because he is carrying a lot of money and money is missing from the factory, he is treated as the prime suspect and arrested. Just before he is taken to the police station, he hands his daughter Lilly the recipe for the secret of Delft. Some time later, Leo van Haaften has taken over his father’s position. Instead of Jan, the corrupt cousin Willem is hired as the factory foreman, and he continues trying to uncover the secret of Delft. He discovers that Annie now has the recipe and tries to persuade her to give it to him. But she is preoccupied with Leo. They desperately want to marry, but he has not been given permission because her father is in prison. A trial follows, with Jan charged with Van Haaften’s murder. The prosecution seeks a twenty-year prison sentence. Jan is ultimately found guilty and sentenced to ten years. Meanwhile, Willem uses violence in an attempt to get the recipe. He goes after Lilly, but she memorizes it and burns the paper it is written on. Things get completely out of hand, however, and her entire house eventually burns down. She stays temporarily with her sister Annie, but Willem still will not leave her alone. Lilly writes a fake recipe and makes sure he finds it. While Willem struggles with his experiments, Lilly is instructed by her father to find the letter left by the person who had left 10,000 guilders in the park. After a long search, she finds it and takes the evidence to the judge. Willem meanwhile realizes that the recipe is wrong and once again harasses Annie. He knows that she has since rewritten the real recipe and confronts her about it. Annie refuses to give in to Willem and runs away. It escalates into a chase that culminates in Annie escaping by standing on one of the rotating sails of a windmill. Bystanders eventually rescue her and take her to the Van Haaften family villa. By then, her father’s suicide note has turned up. At the end of the film, Jan is acquitted; he gets his job back at the factory and, with the help of the correct recipe, is able to make the Delftware with the special sheen he has been seeking for so long. Cousin Willem has meanwhile been arrested. Leo and Annie can finally get married after all.