After Business Hours

1925 film

June 16, 1925 (1925-06-16)

Running time

56 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

After Business Hours is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starring Elaine Hammerstein, Lou Tellegen, and Phyllis Haver.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The film is notable in that its critical success and box office profitability for Columbia Pictures prompted Paramount studio executives to acquire Malcolm St. Clair, where the director would create his finest pictures.^[4]

Plot

As described in a film magazine review,^[5] John King enters married life with the plan of allowing his wife June no money except a few dollars a week. She gambles, loses, and is ashamed to ask her husband for enough to pay her losses. In an effort to repay her losses, she goes into gambling more heavily until her debts increase to a large sum. She gives her pearls as security. Her chauffeur blackmails her for money. To supply him with money, she takes a pin, which her friend Sylvia had dropped at her home, to a pawnbroker, forging Sylvia's signature. The pawnbroker, who had been turned down for membership in John's club, is ambitious to become a member. To force his way into the club, he threatens to disclose the forgery, causing the arrest of June. John fights him and obtains the pin. Returning home, his wife tells him the truth about the pin. He forgives her, taking the blame himself.^[6]

Cast

Elaine Hammerstein as June King
Lou Tellegen as John King
Phyllis Haver as Sylvia Vane
John Patrick as Richard Downing
Lillian Langdon as Mrs. Wentworth
William Scott as James Hendricks
Lee Moran as Jerry Stanton

Production and reception

After his dismissal from the “budget conscious” Warner Bros. studios, director St. Clair was engaged by Columbia Pictures—at that time considered a “Poverty Row” studio—to direct After Business Hours.^[7] A “society drama,” this lost film was well received by reviewers. After Business Hours first appeared in a 71 minute version, the picture was pulled and re-released after editing to a length of 56 minutes. The shorter version was profitable, and its “artistic and financial success” garnered the attention of Paramount Picture executives. ^[8]

Preservation

A nitrate master of After Business Hours that is missing one of its five reels is in the collections of Library and Archives Canada.^[9]

Notes

^ Munden p. 8
^ Progressive Silent Film List: After Business Hours at silentera.com
^ Dwyer, 1996 p. 201-202: Filmography
^ Dwyer, 1996 p. 98: “The Paramount films can realistically be described as the peak of St. Clair’s career, a time when he was twice voted by film critics from the major cinema journals as being one of the best directors in America.”
^ "New Pictures: Faint Perfume", Exhibitors Herald, 22 (5), Chicago, Illinois: Exhibitors Herald Company: 58, July 25, 1925, retrieved July 1, 2022 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ Dwyer, 1996 p. 201-202: Filmography, plot synopsis
^ Dwyer, 1996 p. 94
^ Dwyer, 1996 p. 94, And p. 85: See epigraph attributed to Jack Warner: “I don’t want it good. I want it Tuesday.”
^ "After Business Hours". Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved May 5, 2022.

References

Dwyer, Ruth Anne. 1996. Malcolm St. Clair: His Films, 1915-1948. The Scarecrow Press, Lantham, Md., and London. ISBN 0-8108-2709-3
Munden, Kenneth White. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1. University of California Press, 1997.