- Dangerous Hours
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Dangerous Hours Directed by Fred Niblo Produced by Thomas H. Ince Written by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
C. Gardner SullivanStarring Lloyd Hughes
Barbara CastletonCinematography George Barnes Release date(s) December 1919 Country United States Language Silent
English intertitlesDangerous Hours is a 1919 silent drama film directed by Fred Niblo. Prints of the film survive in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.[1] It premiered in February 1920.[2]
The film was based on a short story published in the Saturday Evening Post. Its working title was Americanism (Versus Bolshevism), the title of a pamphlet published by Ole Hanson, the mayor of Seattle who claimed to have broken the Seattle General Strike in 1919.
The film tells the story of an attempted Russian infiltration of American industry. It includes a depiction of the "nationalization of women" under Bolshevism, including "extras on horseback, rounding up women, throwing them into dungeons and beating them."[3] College graduate John King is sympathetic to the left in a general way. Then he is seduced, both romantically and politically, by Sophia Guerni, a female agitator. Her superior is the Bolshevik Boris Blotchi, who has a "wild dream of planting the scarlet seed of terrorism in American soil."[4] Sofia and Boris turn their attention to the Weston shipyards that are managed by John's childhood sweetheart. The workers have valid grievances, but the Bolsheviks set out to manipulate the situation. They are "the dangerous element following in the wake of labor as riffraff and ghouls follow an army."[5] When they threaten John's earlier love, he has an epiphany and renounces revolutionary doctrine.[6]
A reviewer in Picture Play protested the film's stew of radical beliefs and strategies: "Please, oh please, look up the meaning of the words 'bolshevik,' and 'soviet.' Neither of them mean [sic] 'anarchist,' 'scoundrel' or 'murderer' – really they don't!"[7]
Contents
Cast
- Lloyd Hughes - John King
- Barbara Castleton - May Weston
- Claire Du Brey - Sophia Guerni
- Jack Richardson - Boris Blotchi
- Walt Whitman - Dr. King
- Louis Morrison - Michael Regan (as Lew Morrison)
- Gordon Mullen - Andrew Felton
See also
References
- ^ "Silent Era: Dangerous Hours". silentera. http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/D/DangerousHours1920.html. Retrieved 2008-06-07.
- ^ Hanson, 187
- ^ Brownlow, 260
- ^ Brownlow, 263
- ^ Brownlow, 263
- ^ Brownlow, 263
- ^ Brownlow, 264
- Brownlow, Kevin, The Parade's Gone By... (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968)
- Hanson, Patricia King and Gevinson, Alan, eds., The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, vol.F1: Feature Films, 1911-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 187
External links
- Dangerous Hours at the Internet Movie Database
- Dangerous Hours; allrovi.com / synopsis
- Lantern slide plate, coming attractions
The films of Fred Niblo 1910s Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford • Officer 666 • The Marriage Ring • When Do We Eat? • Fuss and Feathers • Happy Though Married • Partners Three • The Law of Men • The Haunted Bedroom • The Virtuous Thief • Stepping Out • What Every Woman Learns • Dangerous Hours1920s The Woman in the Suitcase • Sex • The False Road • Hairpins • Her Husband's Friend • The Mark of Zorro • Silk Hosiery • Mother o' Mine • Greater Than Love • The Three Musketeers • The Woman He Married • Rose o' the Sea • Blood and Sand • The Famous Mrs. Fair • Strangers of the Night • Thy Name Is Woman • The Red Lily • Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • The Temptress • Camille • The Enemy • The Mysterious Lady • Two Lovers • Dream of Love1930s Redemption • Young Donovan's KidCategories:- American films
- 1919 films
- American drama films
- Silent films
- Black-and-white films
- 1910s drama films
- Films directed by Fred Niblo
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