The Fear Market (1920)

The secret owner of Society Chatter, a scandalous blackmailing sheet, Major Stone is surprised when his daughter Sylvia returns unexpectedly from Italy to fight the paper which caused the suicide of her friend Laura Hill. Sylvia, unaware that her own father is behind the scandal sheet, enlists the aid of Oliver Ellis, the publisher of a reputable newspaper. To retaliate against Ellis, Stone orders his henchman Jim Carson to "get something" on the publisher. Late one night Carson sees a woman dressed in costume visit Ettare Forni, an opera singer, and assumes that the woman is Ellis's sister Milly. When Carson tries to blackmail Ellis with the information, he is trapped into revealing that Stone is the mysterious villain. Sylvia is shocked and Stone is humiliated into forsaking the scandal sheet. Sylvia then forgives her father and marries Ellis.