Capital Punishment
About Capital Punishment
A prologue puts a youth in the electric chair while the governor tries to stop the execution. The switch is thrown. Welfare worker Gordon Harrington, after failing to save an innocent man, bets that he can have another innocent man convicted. He hires Dan O'Connor, who needs money for his mother and wants to marry Delia Tate, to be framed for a murder that will not happen. Harrington sends his friend Harry Phillips off on a yacht and plants evidence. Dan pawns monogrammed articles and is sentenced to death. Phillips comes back early. Harrington kills him in a fight. Harrington's fiancée Mona Caldwell tells him to stay quiet and let Dan hang. At the last moment she tells the police that Harrington killed Phillips.
Cast & crew
More about Capital Punishment
James P. Hogan directed. John F. Goodrich adapted a story by B. P. Schulberg, who also produced. Joseph Goodrich photographed. Preferred Pictures released it on 1 January 1925 in six reels (5,950 feet). Schulberg shaped it as an argument against the death penalty.
Themes
Making
The electrocution in the prologue is staged before the wager plot begins.
Look
Joseph Goodrich photographed it.
Preservation
In the public domain. A copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- Clara Bow plays Delia Tate. George Hackathorne plays Dan O'Connor. Elliott Dexter plays Gordon Harrington. Margaret Livingston plays Mona Caldwell. Mary Carr plays Mrs. O'Connor. Robert Ellis plays Harry Phillips.
- The prologue uses a separate cast: Eddie Phillips as the boy, Alec B. Francis as the chaplain, Edith Yorke as the mother, Joseph Kilgour as the governor, George Nichols as the warden, and John Prince as the doctor.
Scenes
- The prologue throws the switch while the governor is still trying to halt the execution.
- Mona Caldwell tells the police, at the last moment, that Harrington killed Phillips.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-capital-punishment)