What some might call SPOILERS ahead:
Last night I watched "Dangerous Hours" (1919) again after a couple of decades interval, and I came away utterly equivocal about the piece. It's a genuine potboiler about how the Bolsheviks tried to undermine what the film calls Americanism after the 1917 revolution in Russia by trying to intervene during a strike going on in a shipping company here in America in a town called New Meadows. Hughes is a fairly recently college graduated individual filled with platitudes and attitudes and ideals and ideas, but one whose naivete gets him involved with a group of individuals who use him to get their own ends which use violence and other nefarious means to cause political disruption and destruction on American soil - here, New Meadows, where the group thinks they can begin to create enough havoc to wreak great discord among the blue collar workers to rise up against the capitalist owners of large corporations, which in itself will cause further disruptions.
The film itself is naïve, but purposely so, so that the message isn't the only thing being wrought on the viewer. Instead, the potboiler plot, about little over an hour, takes us on a journey of Hughes seriously neglecting his aged and aging and not-so-healthy and not-so-wealthy - in fact, broke - father and also avoiding his life-long gal friend who's in love with Hughes, and, and...
The film is well done. It's a well-made, but boringly directed (by Fred Niblo) film which showcases Hughes rather well. His girl, played by Barbara Castleton, seems far too mature for Hughes, seems older, too, though she's not supposed to be, I don't think; and there's Claire DuBrey, the adversary woman who leads Hughes on and on and on, as she plots with Jack Richardson and others to undermine America. It's also a curious piece for a young Lloyd Hughes to choose to propel himself into the limelight on film because of its inflammatory theme. Yes, he flips sides in the end, and, no, that's not a spoiler - it's a thing bound to happen - but the end is pat and soap-operaish, with the "new" bombs being displayed: hand grenades, which are used to create the havoc and also to end it.
Could have been a political statement for the ages. Instead is simply hash for dinner because steaks were too expensive and not what the majority wanted anyway. Too high-falutin'. This is more entertaining for a dime. Who's got a dolla' anyway? This is the ReelClassicVideo video release DVD, and the picture is quite good. There are many DVD versions available.
The film itself is naïve, but purposely so, so that the message isn't the only thing being wrought on the viewer. Instead, the potboiler plot, about little over an hour, takes us on a journey of Hughes seriously neglecting his aged and aging and not-so-healthy and not-so-wealthy - in fact, broke - father and also avoiding his life-long gal friend who's in love with Hughes, and, and...
The film is well done. It's a well-made, but boringly directed (by Fred Niblo) film which showcases Hughes rather well. His girl, played by Barbara Castleton, seems far too mature for Hughes, seems older, too, though she's not supposed to be, I don't think; and there's Claire DuBrey, the adversary woman who leads Hughes on and on and on, as she plots with Jack Richardson and others to undermine America. It's also a curious piece for a young Lloyd Hughes to choose to propel himself into the limelight on film because of its inflammatory theme. Yes, he flips sides in the end, and, no, that's not a spoiler - it's a thing bound to happen - but the end is pat and soap-operaish, with the "new" bombs being displayed: hand grenades, which are used to create the havoc and also to end it.
Could have been a political statement for the ages. Instead is simply hash for dinner because steaks were too expensive and not what the majority wanted anyway. Too high-falutin'. This is more entertaining for a dime. Who's got a dolla' anyway? This is the ReelClassicVideo video release DVD, and the picture is quite good. There are many DVD versions available.