The House of Hate
| The House of Hate | |
|---|---|
Advert for the film serial with Pearl White
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| Directed by | George B. Seitz |
| Screenplay by | Bertram Millhauser |
| Story by |
Arthur B. Reeve Charles Logue |
| Starring |
Pearl White Antonio Moreno |
| Cinematography |
Arthur Charles Miller Harry Hardy |
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Production
company |
Astra Film Corporation
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| Distributed by | Pathé Exchange |
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Release date
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Running time
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20 episodes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The House of Hate is a 1918 American film serial directed by George B. Seitz, produced when many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
The serial was originally announced at 15 episodes but due to its box office success was extended to 20, at which time content involving German spies was interpolated into the murder mystery plot.
A print of a condensed featurized version of The House of Hate from the collection of filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein is held in the Gosfilmofund film archive in Russia. Most of the propagandistic spy content is excised in the condensation, which does not include chapter divisions but does apparently include most of the content of episodes 1-4 as originally released, highlights from the middle chapters of the serial, and the complete finale including the extended flashback in which the masked villain's identity is revealed. On April 12, 2015 the Fort Lee Film Commission held a screening of a video transfer of existing footage from this film lasting three hours, including shots of Pearl White atop Cliffhanger Point on the Hudson Palisades.
A restored version of the serial with reconstructed opening titles, dialogue, chapter summaries, and chapter divisions was released on DVD by The Serial Squadron on May 25, 2015.
The head of the house of Waldon is mysteriously murdered by a black-cowled killer who has sworn an oath of hate against him and his only heir, a girl who through his death becomes owner of America's largest munitions factory - the Waldon War Works, just after he has arranged for the betrothal of his illegitimate daughter, Pearl, to her cousin, so that the control of the Waldon War Works will remain in the family. Harry Gresham, a young scientist/engineer, is in love with Pearl, and she finds out that she regards him more highly than she does her cousin, after the betrothal. Another cousin, Naomi, is in love with Gresham and does her best to block his efforts to win Pearl. With Gresham's help, Pearl must fend off repeated, wildly violent and merciless attacks on her life by the masked man throughout the serial. All the living Waldon relatives, including another brother, Ezra, seem to be scheming at one time or another to deprive Pearl of her inheritance, but which, if any of the three, is really the masked maniac who threatens her life? Pearl and Harry receive and investigate mysterious messages from someone who purports to know the identity of the killer, and eventually team up and attempt to infiltrate the underworld, using false identities and enduring (literal) cliff-hanging ordeals in order to try and unmask and defeat the Hooded Terror and his gang of crooks.
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Wikipedia