The Silent Command
About The Silent Command
Foreign agents plan to destroy the Panama Canal and the Navy's Atlantic fleet. Hisston cannot get Captain Richard Decatur to reveal the mine positions in the Canal Zone, so the plotters hire Peg Williams to compromise him. Decatur pretends to be drawn into the conspiracy. The pose costs him his career and estranges him from his wife. He then betrays the saboteurs in Panama and stops the attack. The Navy and his wife take him back.
Cast & crew
More about The Silent Command
J. Gordon Edwards directed. Rufus King wrote the story and Anthony Paul Kelly the scenario. William Fox presented it, and Fox Film produced it with the cooperation of the United States Navy. George W. Lane photographed it. The original length was eight reels, 7,809 feet. It was later cut to 6,820 feet. Copyright was August 20, 1923. AFI and Silent Era give the release as August 19, 1923. Fox also played it at theater openings and advertised a New York premiere at the Central Theatre on September 2, 1923.
Themes
Background
William Fox was opening new theaters in 1923 and wanted a picture that argued for a larger Navy. The Canal plot is the story; the recruiting table in the lobby was part of the sell.
In film history
Lugosi's American film career starts here, in a saboteur part already built around close-ups of his eyes.
Making
Edwards shot the picture in New York and built the suspense on Lugosi's face. The Navy's cooperation supplied the fleet imagery the plot uses as its threat.
Reviews
Variety called it one of those "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" pictures, "patriotic to the nth degree," with the Navy all over the screen, a hero, a vamp, and a run of thrills.
Look
George W. Lane photographed it, with extreme close-ups of Lugosi's eyes that later parts would repeat.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
Prints survive, unlike most Fox silents of the period. Silent Era lists the U.S. rights as public domain. After release the picture was shortened from 7,809 feet to 6,820 feet.
Notes
- Bela Lugosi's first American film role is Hisston. The film returns often to his eyes, sometimes in extreme close-up.
- Edmund Lowe plays Decatur, Alma Tell his wife, and Martha Mansfield plays Peg Williams.
- On August 25, 1923, it was the first feature shown at the new Fox Theatre in Oakland, at an opening where Tom Mix rode the horse Tony into the house.
- On August 31 it opened Fox's Monroe Theatre in Chicago for an invitation audience.
- The advertised New York premiere on September 2 included Rear Admiral Charles Peshall Plunkett and other officers.
- Fox sometimes paired showings with Navy recruiting.
- Carl Harbaugh, Betty Jewel, and Henry Armetta are in the cast. Elizabeth Foley plays the Decaturs' daughter Jill.
Scenes
- Hisston fails to pry the mine positions out of Decatur and sends Peg Williams in.
- Decatur lets the Navy and his wife believe he has joined the plot, then turns the saboteurs in at the Canal.
