Dangerous Hours
Cast & Crew
Fred Niblo
Lloyd Hughes
Barbara Castleton
Claire Dubrey
Jack Richardson
Walt Whitman
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
During a strike at the Paterson, New Jersey, silk mills, young John King falls under the spell of Bolshevist agitator Sophia Guerni. When Guerni and her confederate Boris Blotchi decide that their next target will be the peaceful strike at the Weston shipyards, John assents, although his childhood sweetheart May Weston runs the plant and also supports John's poverty-stricken father, Dr. King. However, when John overhears his cohorts extorting money from May, he intervenes and is seriously wounded. After subduing John, the agitators bomb the plant where May and Dr. King have taken refuge. Shaken by the violence, John drives back the mob and renounces his revolutionary doctrine. May then forgives him and the two are reunited.
Director
Fred Niblo
Cast
Lloyd Hughes
Barbara Castleton
Claire Dubrey
Jack Richardson
Walt Whitman
Lew Morrison
Gordon Mullen
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working title of this film was Americanism (Versus Bolshevism). This film was shown privately in New York in December 1919. Sources vary in listing release dates; the film May have been released January 25, 1919. In April 1920, Eminent Authors Pictures, Inc. commenced suit for an injunction to prevent further exhibition of Dangerous Hours under that title, because Eminent Authors claimed to have exclusive and prior right to the use of the title Dangerous Days. Eminent Authors produced Dangerous Days, which was released in March 1920, and claimed that the similarity in titles would mislead the public and benefit the Ince organization, as the novel Dangerous Days was widely known. No further information concerning the suit has been located. Also in April 1920, Dangerous Hours was canceled from showing at Keith's 81st Street Theatre in New York because the Keith management thought that the Bolshevism outlined in the film, while renounced by the main character, was potentially antagonistic.
Variety commented that the film "brings home to an audience the moral that there are insidious forces ostensibly transported to America to sow the seed of discontent among the peaceful, toiling class whose wont it is to follow their occupations without complaining, and do until aroused to a frenzied state of hysteria by 'the blind not leading the blind, but in advance of the vultures'.... The film is grossly exaggerated in spots and could not in many instances be held up to actual incident for comparison, and, therefore, it often sounds unconvincing."
