''Dangerous Hours'' is a 1919 American silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

Fred Niblo Fred Niblo (born Frederick Liedtke; January 6, 1874 – November 11, 1948) was an American pioneer film actor, director and producer. Biography He was born Frederick Liedtke (several sources give "Frederico Nobile", apparently erroneously) in Yo ...

. Prints of the film survive in the

UCLA Film and Television Archive The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the ar ...

. It premiered in February 1920. The film was based on a short story "A Prodigal in Utopia" published in the '' Saturday Evening Post''. The film's working title was ''Americanism (Versus Bolshevism)'', which was the title of a pamphlet published by

Ole Hanson Ole Hanson (January 6, 1874 – July 6, 1940) was an American politician who served as mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1918 to 1919. Hanson became a national figure promoting law and order when he took a hardline position during the 1919 Seat ...

, the mayor of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

who claimed to have broken the

Seattle General Strike The Seattle General Strike of 1919 was a five-day general work stoppage by more than 65,000 workers in the city of Seattle, Washington from February 6 to 11. Dissatisfied workers in several unions began the strike to gain higher wages, after t ...

in 1919.

Plot

The film tells the story of an attempted Russian infiltration of American industry, and includes a depiction of the "nationalization of women" under

Bolshevism Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, ...

, including "extras on horseback, rounding up women, throwing them into dungeons and beating them." College graduate John King (Hughes) is sympathetic to the left in a general way. Then he is seduced, both romantically and politically, by Sophia Guerni (Du Brey), a female agitator. Her superior is the Bolshevik Boris Blotchi (Richardson), who has a "wild dream of planting the scarlet seed of terrorism in American soil."Brownlow, 263 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." When they threaten John's earlier love, he has an epiphany and renounces revolutionary doctrine.

Cast

* Lloyd Hughes as John King * Barbara Castleton as May Weston *

Claire Du Brey Claire Du Brey (born Clara Violet Dubreyvich, August 31, 1892 – August 1, 1993) was an American actress. She appeared in more than 200 films between 1916 and 1959. Her name is sometimes rendered as Claire Du Bray or as Claire Dubrey. Ear ...

as Sophia Guerni * Jack Richardson as Boris Blotchi *

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

as Dr. King * Louis Morrison as Michael Regan (as Lew Morrison) * Gordon Mullen as Andrew Felton

Response to the film

A reviewer in the movie magazine ''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 ic'anarchist,' 'scoundrel' or 'murderer' – really they don't!"Brownlow, 264

References

Bibliography

Kevin Brownlow Kevin Brownlow (born Robert Kevin Brownlow; 2 June 1938) is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become inter ...

, ''The Parade's Gone By...'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) * Patricia King Hanson and Alan Gevinson, eds., ''The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States'', vol.F-1 Feature Films, 1911-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 187

External links