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Film: Dante’s Inferno
Year: 1924
Director: Henry Otto
Writers: Cyrus Wood and Edmund Goulding
Starring: Lawson Butt, Howard Gaye and Ralph Lewis
Review:
This was a movie that I discovered when searching for horror films from 1924. I was able to find a copy on YouTube so I am adding this to my Centennial Club for Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast. This is the second earliest adaptation of this source material from Dante Alighieri that I’ve now reviewed.
Synopsis: the tactics of a vicious slumlord and greedy businessman finally drive a distraught man to commit suicide. The entrepreneur is tried for murder, executed and afterward swiftly taken by demons to Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity.
Now for this movie we have Mortimer Judd (Ralph Lewis). He’s the father of this family as well as the slumlord. He is convinced that if he isn’t ruthless, his family would be in the poorhouse. His wife is Mrs. Judd (Winifred Landis). They employ a nurse, Marjorie Vernon (Pauline Starke). Mortimer doesn’t seem to think there is anything wrong with her, but that could be due to him not wanting to pay. The doctor who cares for her is Joseph (Lorimer Johnston). They have a son, Ernest (William Scott). He butts heads with his father due to the condition of the apartments they own.
This then shows us a man who is indebted to Mortimer, Eugene Craig (Josef Swickard). He sends a letter asking for mercy, but he’s denied. This makes him want to kill himself. His daughter, Mildred (Gloria Grey), is concerned he will do something bad. She then goes to Mortimer to beg. He ignores her as well.
Eugene did send a book to Mortimer, Dante’s Inferno. He starts to read and a Fiend (Robert Klein) appears. The book comes to life, with Dante (Lawson Butt) given a tour of the underworld by Virgil (Howard Gaye). The events of the synopsis then go down where Mortimer is punished for what he’s done to these people as one of his apartments catch fire, injuring tenants.
That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. I want to start by prefacing that the version I watched didn’t have a soundtrack synced with it. That makes these silent films much different without something accompanying the images. I was also curious as this started with how they were going to work on this classic tale since the beginning was for the time a modern setting. There was social commentary here that I found intriguing and relevant as well.
Let’s start with the story that this is following and its message. Mortimer is a slumlord. I found it intriguing to explore this idea with a movie that is a hundred years old now. I’m not sure if that term was used when this was made, but Mortimer owns apartments that have too high of rent for what is provided. This keeps the tenant poor until the point where they get evicted and then he just allows someone new to live there. There is something that happens here though where a fire breaks out, injuring those that live there and making him libel for not helping. This is the climax and the repercussions follow.
There’s another interesting storyline as well dealing with Ernest and Mortimer, father and son, since they don’t see eye to eye. They get into fights regularly. We see one where Mortimer is upset that Ernest has a radio. Mrs. Judd can’t go out so the son bought it so she could have entertainment. Ernest is interested in Marjorie, but this upsets Mortimer since she is there to tend to his wife. Mortimer believes that if he isn’t ruthless, his family is going to spend his money until they’re broke. He is exaggerating while I can see his side that they don’t have an income so there’s pressure on him as well.
The last part of the story to delve into was that I wasn’t sure how we were going to connect Dante’s poem with the story in the present of the movie. I found it interesting that Mortimer is reading this book that was sent to him from Eugene. It almost seems to come with a curse. There is a concept here that I don’t love when it is used today, for the most part. I did find it interesting here and how they are incorporating it. This feels like it is borrowing from a Christmas Carol with it. I’m not going to spoil it beyond that.
Where I’ll then go would be the acting. Our lead here is Lewis and I thought he plays the villainous role well. He comes off angry and every time we see him, he is rude. That works well for what happens to him later and where it ends. I did like Butt and Gaye as Dante and Virgil to set the stage for the different levels of hell. Scott works as Ernest. I like how him, Starke, Landis and Johnston push what Mortimer does and believes. The same could be said for Swickard and Grey as this other family that came into the story to change the Judd’s lives forever. I did have an issue that Bud Jamison was playing the butler. My issue there is that he is white and made him up in blackface for this role. I get it is the time, but it still doesn’t sit well. I’d also say that the rest of the cast was solid for what was needed, especially all those playing roles in hell as either demons or those being punished.
All that is left then is filmmaking. I do have to say that the copy I saw on YouTube was rough. It was too dark to make out details. It also made the early title cards hard to see. There also was no soundtrack synced with it. A cleaned-up version would be nice to give this a true rating. With what I could see though, I thought that bringing hell to life was great. I also love this fiend that is haunting Mortimer. I guessed that it wasn’t real, but the implications of it work. The effects that we get in hell were all done in-camera so that it’s impressive. This is made well enough from what I could tell for this era.
In conclusion, this is another early version of this source material that I’ve seen. What is interesting is the two different takes on it. I love setting up this story that is relative today about a slumlord who is living off his tenants without doing what he should to help them. Showing us Dante’s vision of hell and then Mortimer being punished was great. I thought that the acting was good. The version I saw was rough, but this looked like it was made well enough from what I could tell. There is a story element used that I don’t love now. Using it during this era though it is still new. Not having a soundtrack synced was a bummer as well. I’d still recommend this to fans of this era or looking into the history of the horror genre.
My Rating: 7 out of 10