AllMovie

Secret Love was based on The Lass of Lowries, a story by Frances Hodgson Burnett (of Little Lord Fauntleroy fame). The story is set in a Lancashire coal-mining community, where bibulous, bullying miner Don Lowrie (Jack Curtis) holds the rest of the villagers in thrall. Lowrie's daughter Joan (Helen Ware) is in love with handsome mine foreman Fergus Derrick (Harry Carey Sr.) but dares not admit it lest she incur her father's horrible wrath. The film comes to a happy conclusion in a roundabout manner when the hateful Lowrie finally drinks himself to death. So as not to miss a trick, the plot manages to accommodate a mineshaft rescue, with Joan as the saver and Fergus as the sav-ee.