High Voltage (1929 film)
| High Voltage | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Howard Higgin |
| Produced by | Ralph Block |
| Written by |
James Gleason Kenyon Nicholson |
| Starring |
William Boyd Carole Lombard Owen Moore Phillips Smalley Billy Bevan |
| Music by | Josiah Zuro |
| Cinematography | John J. Mescall |
| Edited by | Doane Harrison |
| Distributed by | Pathé Exchange |
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Release date
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Running time
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63 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
High Voltage (1929) is an American pre-Code film produced by Pathé Exchange and directed by Howard Higgin.
The film stars William Boyd, Diane Ellis, Owen Moore, Phillips Smalley, Billy Bevan, and Carole Lombard in her feature-length "talkie" film debut, billed as "Carol Lombard."
This film is in the public domain.
The film begins with a bus driving along a snow-covered roadway in the Sierra Nevada between Nevada City, California, and Reno, Nevada. Soon the vehicle gets hopelessly stuck in deep snow forty miles from the nearest town. Needing shelter, the driver "Gus" (Billy Bevan) and his four passengers find refuge in an isolated one-room log church. The passengers include "Billie" (Carole Lombard), an escaped criminal being escorted back to jail in New York by a deputy sheriff, "Dan Egan" (Owen Moore); a young woman, "The Kid," (Diane Ellis) on her way to Chicago to meet her boyfriend; and "Hickerson," a pompous, ill-tempered banker. In the church the group finds "Bill" (William Boyd), a self-described "hobo," who had found shelter there earlier. Tensions quickly arise in the group over their general plight, petty jealousies, and concerns about how six people are going to share the small supply of food that Bill had brought with him.
After a few days being stranded, the group sees a passing mail plane high in the sky. They try to attract the pilot's attention, but he is too far away to see them. More days pass, and the group continues to ration their dwindling supplies and battle the subfreezing temperatures. To keep warm they begin to break up the church's pews and other furnishings to use as firewood in the room's potbelly stove. The group's desperation intensifies, as does a romance between Bill and Billie. Soon Bill confides to her that he too is a wanted criminal, a fugitive from Saint Paul, Minnesota. As conditions worsen, The Kid collapses from hunger and become delirious; and the church's interior becomes almost bare as more furnishings--even the church's pulpit and pump organ--are consigned to the stove. Bill and Billie finally commit to leaving to avoid being imprisoned if the group is somehow rescued. They quietly depart during the night, hoping to reach a ranger station ten miles away. Everyone else is sleeping except Dan, the deputy sheriff, who sees the two leaving; but he does nothing to stop them. After walking a short distance through snowdrifts, Bill and Billie hear and then see a search plane slowly circling overhead at low altitude. Realizing that the others inside the church will not hear the plane's engine, they rush back and awaken them. The group hurriedly builds a signal fire, which the plane's pilot sees. He parachutes a box of provisions to them with a note saying that help will be sent immediately.
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