''After Business Hours'' is a 1925 American silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Malcolm St. Clair and starring

Elaine Hammerstein Elaine Hammerstein (June 16, 1894 – August 13, 1948) was an American silent film and stage actress. Early life Elaine Hammerstein was born on June 16, 1894, in Manhattan, the daughter of Jean Allison Hammerstein and opera producer Arthur H ...

Lou Tellegen Lou Tellegen (born Isidor Louis Bernard Edmon van Dommelen;"Lou Tellegen, Idol of Stage and Silent Screen, Stabs Himself Seven Times." Spartanburg (SC) Herald, October 30, 1934, pp. 1-2. November 26, 1881 or 1883 – October 29, 1934) was a ...

, and

Phyllis Haver Phyllis Maude Haver (January 6, 1899 – November 19, 1960) was an American actress of the silent film era. Early life Haver was born in Douglass, Kansas to James Hiram Haver and Minnie Shanks Malone. When she was young, her family moved to L ...

. The film is notable in that its critical success and box office profitability for

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

prompted Paramount studio executives to acquire Malcolm St. Clair, where the director would create his finest pictures.

Plot

As described in a film magazine review, 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 Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercion). Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be persons and social groups, objects and institutions, ecosystems, or any other entity or ...

. 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 A pawnbroker is an individual that offers secured loans to people, with items of personal property used as Collateral (finance), collateral. A pawnbrokering business is called a pawnshop, and while many items can be pawned, pawnshops typic ...

, 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.

Cast

Production and reception

After his dismissal from the “budget conscious” Warner Bros. studios, director St. Clair was engaged by

—at that time considered a “ Poverty Row” studio—to direct ''After Business Hours''. 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.

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 Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

Notes

References

*Dwyer, Ruth Anne. 1996. ''Malcolm St. Clair: His Films, 1915-1948.'' ''

The Scarecrow Press Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an American independent academic publishing company founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns t ...

'', Lantham, Md., and London. * Munden, Kenneth White. ''The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1''.

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 1997.

External links

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Lobby card
at www.gettyimages.com 1925 films 1925 drama films Silent American drama films Films directed by Malcolm St. Clair American silent feature films 1920s English-language films Columbia Pictures films American black-and-white films 1920s American films English-language drama films {{1920s-silent-drama-film-stub