Capital Punishment | |
---|---|
Directed by | James P. Hogan |
Written by | John F. Goodrich |
Based on | a story by B. P. Schulberg |
Produced by | B. P. Schulberg |
Cinematography | Joseph Goodrich |
Distributed by | Preferred Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6 reels |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Capital Punishment is a surviving 1925 American silent melodrama film directed by James P. Hogan and starring Clara Bow, Margaret Livingston, Mary Carr, and Elliott Dexter. It was produced by B. P. Schulberg and is now in the public domain. [1] [2] It was written and produced with the intent of challenging the viewing public question the use of capital punishment. [3]
As described in a review in a film magazine, [3] a prologue shows a youth, wrongly convicted of murder, is placed in an electric chair with the Governor (Kilgour) frantically attempting to call it off, ending with the throwing of a switch to show the electrocution taking place. In the main story, Gordon Harrington (Dexter) wagers Harry Phillips (Ellis) that he can have an innocent convicted of murder. He persuades Dan O'Connor (Hackathorne), a youth who has been in trouble with the police but has reformed, to be the subject of the experiment. Dan needs the money for his mother and also wants to marry Delia Tate (Bow). Phillips disappears and is reported murdered. Dan is arrested when he pawns articles bearing Phillips’ monogram, and is convicted based upon circumstantial evidence. In the meantime, Phillips and Harrington have fought over Mona Caldwell (Livingston), and when the latter is accidentally killed, Mona persuades Harrington to let Dan pay the penalty rather than risk execution himself. Dan, Della, and a friendly policeman (Boteler) attempt to locate Harrington, and at last, the Prison Warden (Nichols) gets Harrington on the telephone. Dan, flabbergasted when Harrington denies knowledge of any experiment, becomes a terror stricken boy overwhelmed by the injustice and inevitableness of it all. Dan's death impends when Mona confesses to the Governor, and a repentant Harrington pounds the prison gates. The governor saves him in the nick of time, but Dan is a wreck of a human being and must be held and nursed back before he can forget what almost happened.
Prints of Capital Punishment are held at the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. [4]
Margaret Livingston, sometimes credited as Marguerite Livingstone or Margaret Livingstone, was an American film actress and businesswoman during the silent film era. She is remembered today as "the Woman from the City" in F. W. Murnau's 1927 film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum-security prison for men operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of Midtown Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates as of 2007, and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York for a period, with the final execution there occurring in 1963; instead Green Haven Correctional Facility had the execution chamber by the late 20th Century. The total abolition of capital punishment in New York occurred in 2007.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Nevada.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Ohio, although all executions have been suspended indefinitely by Governor Mike DeWine until a replacement for lethal injection is chosen by the Ohio General Assembly. The last execution in the state was in July 2018, when Robert J. Van Hook was executed via lethal injection for murder.
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Old Sparky is the nickname of the electric chairs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. Old Smokey is the nickname of the electric chairs used in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. "Old Sparky" is sometimes used to refer to electric chairs in general, and not one of a specific state.
Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Texas. He was convicted for the 28 November 1990 murder of jeweler Chung Myong Yi. He was convicted by a jury on July 16, 1991, and ten days later sentenced to death by the same jury.
Between 1788 and 1868 the British penal system transported about 162,000 convicts from Great Britain and Ireland to various penal colonies in Australia.
Stateville Correctional Center (SCC) is a maximum security state prison for men in Crest Hill, Illinois, United States, near Chicago. It is a part of the Illinois Department of Corrections.
Governor James Devlin is a fictional character on the HBO drama Oz, played by Željko Ivanek.
The Kentucky State Penitentiary (KSP), also known as the "Castle on the Cumberland", is a maximum security and supermax prison with capacity for 856 prisoners located in Eddyville, Kentucky on Lake Barkley on the Cumberland River, about 4.8 kilometres (3 mi) from downtown Eddyville. It is managed by the Kentucky Department of Corrections. Completed in 1886, it is Kentucky's oldest prison facility and the only commonwealth-owned facility with supermax units. The penitentiary houses Kentucky's male death row inmates and the commonwealth's execution facility. As of 2015, it had approximately 350 staff members and an annual operating budget of $20 million. In most cases, inmates are not sent directly to the penitentiary after sentencing but are sent there because of violent or disruptive behavior committed in other less secure correctional facilities in the commonwealth. This was Kentucky's second penitentiary: the first was made uninhabitable by a flood in 1937.
Wade Boteler was an American film actor and writer. He appeared in more than 430 films between 1919 and 1943.
George Hackathorne was an American actor of the silent era. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1916 and 1939.
Nevada State Prison (NSP) was a penitentiary located in Carson City. The prison was in continuous operation since its establishment in 1862 and was managed by the Nevada Department of Corrections. It was one of the oldest prisons still operating in the United States. The high security facility housed 219 inmates in September 2011. It was designed to hold 841 inmates and employed a staff of 211.
Joseph Kilgour was a Canadian actor of the silent film era. He was a well-known veteran stage actor in Broadway theatre before entering silent films. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1909 and 1926.
The Missouri State Penitentiary was a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, that operated from 1836 to 2004. Part of the Missouri Department of Corrections, it served as the state of Missouri's primary maximum security institution. Before it closed, it was the oldest operating penal facility west of the Mississippi River. It was replaced by the Jefferson City Correctional Center, which opened on September 15, 2004. The penitentiary is now a tourist attraction, and guided tours are offered.
Andriza Mircovich was an Austro-Hungarian national of Serb descent. He was the only prisoner ever to be executed by shooting in the US state of Nevada. He had been sentenced to death for the premeditated murder of John Gregovich in Tonopah, Nevada. Mircovich felt that he was owed more money from Gregovich's administration of his late cousin's estate and resorted to settling the matter by stabbing Gregovich to death.
Weary River is a 1929 American sound part-talkie romantic drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, and William Holden. The film was produced and distributed by First National Pictures. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score, singing and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system.
John Franklin Sheridan was an American actor of the silent and early sound film eras. With his comedy partner Joseph Flynn, he performed in the vaudeville duo Flynn and Sheridan.
Human Hearts is a 1922 American silent rural drama film directed by King Baggot, and produced and distributed by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. It stars House Peters. It is based on a play of the same name by Hal Reid.