The Last Warning
| The Last Warning | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Paul Leni |
| Produced by | Carl Laemmle |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on |
House of Fear (novel) by Thomas F. Fallon |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Joseph Cherniavsky |
| Cinematography | Hal Mohr |
| Edited by | Robert Carlisle |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 89 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Last Warning is a 1929 American silent mystery film directed by Paul Leni. It is a companion piece to Universal Pictures 1927 production of The Cat and the Canary. [2]
The film was adapted from the 1922 Broadway melodrama mystery The Last Warning written by Thomas F. Fallon based on the story The House of Fear by Wadsworth Camp, the father of the writer Madeleine L'Engle. The play ran for 238 performances from October 23, 1922, until May 1923 at the Klaw Theatre. This was the last film directed by Leni before his death from blood poisoning in Los Angeles on September 2, 1929.[2]
Cast
- Laura La Plante as Doris Terry
- Montagu Love as Arthur McHugh
- Roy D'Arcy as Harvey Carleton
- Margaret Livingston as Evalynda Hendon
- John Boles as Richard Quayle
- Burr McIntosh as Josiah Bunce
- Mack Swain as Robert
- Bert Roach as Mike Brody
- Carrie Daumery as Barbara Morgan
- Slim Summerville as Tommy Wall
Plot
Five years after a theater was closed following a murder of one of its actors during a performance, a producer decides to solve the mystery by again staging the play with the remaining cast. During the repeat performance another murder occurs. Eventually it is discovered that the murders were part a ploy devised by the stage manager to sabotage the production.
Production
The film was envisioned as a companion piece to director Leni's earlier The Cat and the Canary, due to that film's great popularity. Though it re-teamed Leni with The Cat and the Canary star Laura La Plante and features a similar style, The Last Warning lacks the supernatural elements of The Cat and the Canary and is therefore usually considered in the mystery genre rather than the horror genre.[2]
The theater set used in the film was built for the 1925 The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney. [2]
The film is often considered one of the last silent films produced by Universal Studios, but it was also released in a "part-talkie" version with a brief minute or two of synch-sound footage added. These scenes have since been lost. [2]
Other adaptations
The Last Warning was re-made in 1939 by Joe May under the title The House of Fear.[3]
References
- ↑ "The Last Warning". Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Atkinson, Michael. "The Last Warning". silentfilm.org/. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
- ↑ "The House of Fear (1939)". AllMovie. Retrieved 2014-06-27.
External links
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Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Last Warning |
- The Last Warning at the Internet Movie Database
- The Last Warning is available for free download at the Internet Archive
- The Last Warning at AllMovie
- The Last Warning at the TCM Movie Database
- The Last Warning review at the New York Times
- Internet Broadway Database "The Last Warning"