Valley of Hate (1924) Poster

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5/10
City-boy falls for country-girl
topitimo-829-27045913 January 2020
This b-production is by Russell Productions, a company that made a total of eight films, and is directed by Russell Allen, a helmer of two. It carries the dramatic-sounding title "Valley of Hate", but this is nothing quite so threatening. The film is set in the lands between North and South Carolina. This is a region where people live miles apart from one another, so much so, that the film, set in the modern-day, looks just like a western that simply lacks the props.

A young man (Raymond McKee) arrives to this region, because he has inherited a house. There he meets a beautiful girl (Helen Ferguson), who is the ward of an illegal moonshiner. An arranged marriage with an older man awaits for her, but of course things get complicated when she and the city-boy fall in love.

The narrative offers nothing surprising, but the film is only an hour. The leads are both attractive-looking people, though for a girl living in a sandpit the heroine of the picture looks way too polished, and has too much make-up to be believable in the role. Then again, this is a common sin for old Hollywood. It's okay, if you like silent romances, but you can easily find 10 better ones just from YouTube alone.
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7/10
Lavishly ptoduced
JohnHowardReid28 January 2018
Warning: Spoilers
The lavishly produced Valley of Hate (1924) - available on an excellent Grapevine Video DVD - is not really a western, although it deals with a group of hateful backwoods moonshiners led by Wilfred Lucas, and a lovely, homeless girl, Helen Ferguson, whom they have turned into a maid-of-all-work.

Fortunately, as we might expect, her rescuer is at hand.

Said rescuer is played by the highly personable but almost forgotten, big-time star, Raymond McKee, who stumbles into the arena before the final shoot-out between the moonshiners and the revenue agents.

This plot may sound old-hat, but it's directed here (by Russell Allen) with a sure hand.
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