In the Name of the Law (1922 film)

In the Name of the Law
Directed by Emory Johnson
Asst Dir Dick Posson[1]
Produced by P. A. Powers
Written by Emory Johnson
Screenplay by Emilie Johnson
Story by Emilie Johnson
Starring Ralph Lewis
Claire McDowell
Cinematography Ross Fisher
Distributed by Film Booking Offices of America
Release date
  • August 22, 1922 (1922-08-22)
Running time
 6-7 reels (65 minutes)
Country United States
Language Silent (English intertitles)
Titles by Carol Owen[1]

In the Name of the Law is a 1922 American police melodrama silent film. It was directed by Emory Johnson[2] and starred veteran actors Ralph Lewis and Claire McDowell. It was filmed entirely in California.

The film is an early example of an exploitation strategy, in this case, targeting a profession that had been cinematically maligned. The producers also encouraged local merchants to use the graphic of the officer holding his hand up to sell their products.

Background

In late August 1922, a feature film about a police officer was released. The movie was generally well-received by the public. The film producers, however, had a grander scheme to generate even more revenue. They implemented a promotional strategy which teamed city police departments with local theater owners in order to mutually promote the film. In many cases, even the local merchants jumped on the promotional bandwagon. The film was titled In the Name of the Law. It starred Ralph Lewis and a "superb cast."

It depicted law enforcement in a new light. Police were no longer shown as bumbling stumblebums featured in the trendy comedic short subject films of the early part of the 1900s e.g. Keystone Cops. This movie portrayed cops as enforcing the law while balancing their duties with the responsibilities of a raising a family. This became the main theme of the film.

As the decades marched on, the movie was lost along with other films of the era. Even though the physical film was lost, the movie started to assume multiple identities. The film acquired labels such as police drama, sports film and a police drama starting baseball legend Honus Wagner. Even today, many websites refer to In the Name of the Law featuring Honus Wagner catching baseballs thrown from a building roof.

Inspiration

Emory Johnson, at the time one of the silver screen's leading men, had recently returned to the San Francisco Bay area to make another movie, based on a story by his mother, Emilie Johnson. He decided to visit his mother, who lived in the general vicinity. While driving down San Francisco's Market Street en route, he failed to stop at an intersection. A police officer pulled him to the side. Emory immediately noticed the policeman's cheerful demeanor. He began to wonder about the officer's home life and how it affected his work. He went on to discuss the idea with his mother, an experienced scenarist, and soon thereafter she started to write The Midnight Call.[3]

Plot

Although copies of the film or its screenplay no longer exist, its storyline can be approximated by stitching together various newspaper reviews.[4][5][6][7]

Prologue

The story's prologue opens when policeman O'Hara discovers a lost child who has stolen some milk. Rather than disciplining her, he tenderly takes her home instead. The following morning, while reading the newspaper, he finds out the girl has run away from an orphanage. Since their own baby daughter had passed away, the O'Hara's make plans to adopt the child.

The prologue then moves on and features the O'Hara's sons. Ben Alexander plays a young Harry O'Hara at age 10. Harry's younger brother is portrayed by Johnny Thompson playing Johnnie O'Hara at age 9. Their newly adopted daughter Mary is played by Josephine Adair at age 9.

Harry's Theft

After a single subtitle, the story jumps 12 years into the future. Harry is now age 22. He attends college, studying law hoping to become a lawyer. His lofty goals run contrary to his father wishes. His father has told his son he has "wasted his time getting an education".[8] Johnnie is age 20 and works at the local bank. Mary, age 18, is also employed at the same bank as a stenographer. Johnnie and Mary have fallen in love and planned their wedding. We also discover the O'Hara's have always wanted to own their own cottage. The family's frugality has finally come to fruition. They are only one payment away from paying off the mortgage.

While attending law school, Harry earns pocket money by pressing clothes and washing dishes. One day, while Harry is at work, somebody carelessly leaves a sizable sum of money in a pair of pants to be pressed.[9] The money goes missing and the owner accuses Harry of the theft. He reports the theft and charges are filed. Upon hearing of the accusation, Harry's mother becomes distraught. Her oldest, whom she had been secretly funding while he attended law school, couldn't possibly have committed this crime. Mother O'Hare hatches a plan to keep her eldest out of jail. She will take the money they had saved for their final payment on the cottage and secretly pass it to Harry. Harry will "find" the missing money and return it to the owner.

While the family is at home, sans Harry, Pat finds out what his wife has done with their cottage money in order to save Harry. A massive argument breaks out. When things settle down, everyone goes their separate ways. While officer O'Hare goes to work, Mary goes to the bank and approaches the bank president. Mr. Lucus, to ask for a loan. Mr. Lucus readily agrees to give her the loan, but as she finds out, he expects certain special favors in addition to the normal repayment. Johnnie takes another tact to help his brother. He decides to tap into a stash of funds he's stored in his safety deposit box. After taking the funds, Johnnie heads home to find the house empty.

Where is everybody? Officer O'Hara is at work, mother O'Hara is with Harry and Mary is begging for a loan. He heads back to the bank. All of the sudden, Johnnie finds out Mary is flush with cash and believes she has stolen the money from the bank to save Harry. A quarrel breaks out. Now, Johnnie decides to must use the money from his safety deposit box to cover his girlfriend's theft. Yet, how could wholesome Mary steal this money? He starts investigating this supposed theft by looking around the bank and then head to the back of the bank.

The Robbery

The scene switches, the bank is being robbed! Bank officials are alerted to the crime by Mary's screams. Somebody calls the cops. Police rush to the bank and are headed by none other than officer Pat O'Hare. Even though the police arrive quickly, a policeman still gets killed during the robbery. All action stops when the holdup is finally thwarted. However, twenty-five years on the force has taught officer O'Hara he must perform his due diligence of the crime scene. Officer O'Hare checks the entire bank and then walks around to the back of the bank. In the heat of the moment. he believes he finds another one of the robbers and a shot is fired. Then to his absolute horror, he realizes he has just wounded his son Johnnie.

The Trial

The story switches to the trial of Johnnie O'Hara for robbery and murder. Even though the case is based on circumstantial evidence, Johnnie is still on the verge of being convicted on all counts. All of the sudden a new lawyer for the defense appears - none other than Johnnie's brother Harry who is now a full-fledged lawyer. Harry immediately makes a passionate plea for his brother. Everyone in the courtroom is struck by Harry's eloquence. Then, Harry finds new direct evidence exonerating his brother completely - thank you, Mary!

Then, as a precursor to similar scenes from the TV series "Perry Mason", the bank President, Mr. Lucus, suddenly stands up. Overcome with guilt after hearing Harry's appeals, he confesses to the robbery and murdering the policeman. Even after his confession, Mr. Lucus is still unable to control his emotions of guilt. He approaches the bench. While facing the judge, Mr. Lucus pulls a gat and shoots himself.

After the trial is completed and the charges are thrown out, the criminal charges filed against Harry are also tossed. The movie ends when the participants are convinced their luck has changed and misfortune will no longer deal them any more bad cards.

Cast

Prologue
Ben Alexander plays Harry O'Hara age 10
Johnny Thompson plays Johnnie O'Hara age 8
Josephine Adair plays Mary age 6

Main
Ralph Lewis played Patrick O'Hara
Claire McDowell played Mrs. O'Hara
Emory Johnson played Harry O'Hara age 22

Supporting
Johnnie Walker played Johnnie O'Hara age 20
Ella Hall played Mary age 18
Richard Morris played Mr. Lucus

Theme

The leading theme of this film was to portray law enforcement in a whole new light. As stated previously, this new concept would not depict police officers as bumbling stumblebums. They had always been the usual fodder for the comedic short subject films e.g. Keystone Cops. This movie would portray cops first as family men – real men trying balance raising a family with the dangerous profession as guardians of the law. Yet, it would also show an officer of the law must sometimes seek resolution and balance between enforcing the law no matter what the circumstances versus the heart-felt obligations of a family man and father.

Release

New York premiere

In the Name of the Law had its premiere in New York City on July 9, 1922. It was first shown to movie patrons at the George M. Cohen theater which had been converted to show movies. Instead of the normal week booking for special films, this movie was booked for a month.

Film Booking Offices of America (FBO) claimed the movie was extended to a month, where Variety claimed it had been booked a month in advance of the showing. FBO and the movie rags wrote about the sizable crowds viewing the movie. Variety magazine gave a less glowing but probably more realistic crowd-size report. This information is important because future bookings always referenced sell-out crowds in New York as proof of its attraction power.

The New York premiere was the first example of the exploitation potential of the movie. New York had 12,000 police officers on the force at the time.[10] Getting them involved in the advertising this movie was a stroke of pure genius.[11] Also, as part of an agreement to share some of the movie revenues with police causes, Emory Johnson presented each widow of seven police officers that had been killed in the line on duty individual checks for $170 (In today's money $2,500).[12]

Official release

The film was officially released for bookings on August 22, 1922.

Filming and cinematography

This movie was filmed entirely in San Francisco, California. Some sources indicate the cinematography was handled by both Ross Fisher ASC and Henry Sharp ASC. Camera's "Pulse of the Studios" credits the cameraman as "Fisher-Mickle". The consensus seems to have the cameraman as Ross Fisher.

The controlling studio for the film is listed as "United Studios", not "R-C Studio". The advertisement for The United Studios states - "...the unlimited facilities, equipment and highly specialized staff have made the United Studios the most economically operated motion picture plant available to independent producers."[13] The explanation for this is R-C would not have its own filming facilities until 1922.

According to Camera magazine's "Pulse of the Studios" section,

  1. Principal photography began the first week of December in 1921.
  2. Post production work was started the week of January 7, 1922, and would continue until March 1922.
  3. The film was then "shipped East" during the 4th week of March.
  4. The film is listed as "finished" the first week of April 1922.

Exploitation

A major part of this exploitation plan, was to have movie booking agents get the cooperation and endorsement of the local police department before showing the movie in their town. In fact, before this film was released, FBO stated it had 100 letters from police chiefs around the country stating they would lend their support the showing of this film in their cities.[4] If the theater had questions on how to exploit this movie - FBO would provide a 22-page newspaper size campaign book.[14][15]

Thus, this film had a well-organized and clear strategy of exploitation. Admittedly, the word exploitation has a nefarious overtone. However, in this case, it was mutually self-serving. We had a low budget house hawking a low budget film to police departments starving for respectability. The police hoped the film would increase their image from bad-tempered dour automatons to family guys, just like you and I, but committed to maintaining the law. This movie also gave police a well-deserved chance to show off what they did and the services they provided. Often times, these police demonstrations were filmed and shown as a prologue to the movie.[16]

Another piece of the exploitation pie, as demonstrated in New York, included donating a percentage of the movie proceeds to police pension funds, police orphans, police widows and other police causes. Lastly, the local merchants, as we can see in the full-page newspaper ad, often took advantage of the promotion to promote their products.

Reception

The movie was generally well-received. Most small town venues loved the movie. Larger cities like New York and Los Angeles were not swept up in its story or sentimentality but their police forces certainly took advantage of the exposure.

Most police departments were knowingly on-board with the exploitation aspect of the movie. Many local police departments gave the movie free advertising by staging stunts, local police-in-action scenarios, appreciation parades and other activities drawing attention to the work of the local police force.

The film didn't make the top ten list of films of 1922 by any reviewer except one from Seattle, WA.

Screenplay

Emilie Johnson was Emory Johnson's mother. She was born on June 3, 1867, in Gothenburg, Västra Götaland, Sweden. She emigrated to America. In 1893 married Alfred Jönsson. The ceremony took place in San Francisco, California. Their first son was born in 1894 - Alfred Emory Johnson.

Emilie Johnson was the writer, screenplay and story originator on The Midnight Call. In fact, she would have four of her stories shown simultaneously in 1922:[17]

  1. The Midnight Call released August 22, 1921
  2. Blind Hearts released October 3, 1921
  3. The Sea Lion released December 5, 1921
  4. The Sacrifice (no information available)

She continued to write the story for her son's next production, The Third Alarm. Then in 1925, she wrote a story about baseball – Life's Greatest Game, based on the 1919 baseball scandal.

Alternate title

This movie originally sprung to life as The Midnight Call. This is the correct alternate title for this film. The reference suggests the title was changed to In the Name of the Law sometime in June of 1922. This would explain using the new title for the film's premiere in New York on July 9, 1922.[4]

Another alternate title for this movie is incorrectly listed as The Discard or Discard. The mix-up might have occurred because filming started on The Discard in July 1922, which coincided with the July 9 premiere of In the Name of the Law.

Honus Wagner connection

Several websites claim Honus Wagner had a role in this film. The facts are - Pittsburgh Pirates retired baseball superstar Honus Wagner did not participate in any of the writing, production, direction nor did he have any major or minor roles in the production of the film. The confusion occurred when Honus Wagner participated in the movie exploitation campaign staged in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The overall campaign's objective was to get the local police departments involved in the promotion of this police film. Thus, Wagner did assist in promoting this film along with the Pittsburgh Police department.[18][19]

Many police departments participated in promoting this film when it landed in their jurisdictions. As stated above, the movie first premiered in New York and became the first practice run at exploiting this movie. This first exploitation included the participation of two New York baseball superstars. This promotion has a direct tie-in to the Honus Wagner stunt. The following is a quote from an article published in the July issue of the Moving Picture World:

The attention of all Broadway was focused on the picture during the noon hour on Monday, July 17th, when "Babe" Ruth and Bob Meusel performed a ball-throwing act in the center of Times Square, to aid the run of the picture, a part of the receipts of which will be given to police widows and orphans.[20][21]

This film was officially released in August 1922 and Pittsburgh scheduled its first showing in September. FBO coordinated with the Pittsburgh police department to promote the film and launched an exploitation campaign. The promotion started on Monday, September 11, 1922. "Hollywood cameramen" filmed the Superintendent of Police and his staff along with other policemen in action. The schedule for the Pittsburgh promotion is shown below. Note - activity scheduled for Friday, September 15.

Pittsburgh Daily Post published schedule of events
Date Event
Mon Sep 11, 1922Starting at noon, cameramen will film backgrounds for the opening scenes. The starting location will be at Fifth Avenue and Liberty, ending at Fifth Avenue and Wood street. The public is invited to view all the action.
Tue Sep 12, 1922Starting at noon, cameramen will capture the activities centered at Liberty Avenue and Wood Street.
Wed Sep 13, 1922Further scenes will be photographed at Liberty Avenue and Tenth street.
Thu Sep 14, 1922The vicinity of the fifth Avenue high school will be the scene of action at noon Thursday. Currently, the site is the location of the Fifth Avenues Lofts.
Fri Sep 15, 1922Former Pittsburgh Pirates great Honus Wagner will be the center of interest on Friday. Starting at noon, Pittsburgh Police Superintendent and former professional ballplayer John C. Calhoun will drop baseballs from the top of the 144 foot City-County building to a waiting Honus Wagner below. ("'Hans' was able to snare the first and third 'pitches'.") Motion pictures of this event along with pictures of the crowd will be taken at the same time. Later in the day, a thrilling chase scene will be staged in Schenley Park. Two motorcycle police will pursue a stolen vehicle eventually capturing and arresting the driver.[22]
Sat Sep 16, 1922Forbes Field is the gathering place for the greater Pittsburgh Annual Police department field day featuring the New Keyon Orchestra - John Marsh Conducting.
Sun Sep 17, 1922Superintendent Calhoun along with county officials and newspapermen will be the guests of James B. Clark at the special screening of "In the Name of the Law." The feature film will be shown along with a prologue of local pictures shot earlier in the week.[23]
Mon Sep 18, 1922"In the name of the Law" starts showing at Rowland & Clark's Blackstone Theater located on Fifth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh PA[24]

Thus, on a September afternoon in 1922, a retired baseball superstar caught baseballs tossed from the roof of a city building. This attraction, along with “thousands” of spectators watching the event, was captured on film, photographed by local newspapers and shown as a prologue to this attraction. Somehow, Honus Wagner’s stunt became inextricably intertwined with this movie.

Displayed below are three photographs from the Pittsburgh event.

References

  1. 1 2 American Film Institute (1997). The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States. University of California Press. p. 378. ISBN 978-0-520-20969-5.
  2. ↑ E.J. Fleming (25 October 2013). Wallace Reid: The Life and Death of a Hollywood Idol. McFarland. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-7864-8266-5.
  3. ↑ "The Last Edition". San Francisco Silent Film Festival,. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 "R-C's Biggest Since 'Kismet'". Motion Picture News. New York, Motion Picture News, Inc.
  5. ↑ "'In the Name of the Law'". Motion Picture News. New York, Motion Picture News, Inc. July 22, 1922.
  6. ↑ "Newest Reviews and Comments". Moving Picture World. New York, Chalmers Publishing Company. July 22, 1922.
  7. ↑ "Reviews". Exhibitors Herald. Chicago, Exhibitors Herald. July 29, 1922.
  8. ↑ "In the Name of the Law". Exhibitors Trade Review. July 22, 1922. p. 615.
  9. ↑ "Pierce's Tudor". New Orleans States. September 28, 1922. p. 9 – via genealogybank.com. (subscription required)
  10. ↑ Annual Report of the Police Department list 11,831 uniformed officers. City of New York. 1922. p. 96.
  11. ↑ "Rothstein's N.Y.Campaign". Motion Picture News. July 1, 1922.
  12. ↑ "Widows of 7 cops killed on duty each get $170 check". The Evening World. August 11, 1922. p. 9 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  13. ↑ "UNITED STUDIOS INC". Exhibitors Trade Review. December 30, 1922. p. 30.
  14. ↑ "S-h-a-t-t-e-r-e-d!". The Film Daily. Wid's Films and Film Folks, Inc.
  15. ↑ "Nat Rothstein Compiles Best Campaign Book". Exhibitors Herald. August 26, 1922. p. 50.
  16. ↑ "Rothstein Conducts Record Ad Campaign". Exhibitors Herald. Chicago, Exhibitors Herald. July 29, 1922.
  17. ↑ "This Writer has Produced 19 Scenarios". Riverside Independent Enterprise. May 14, 1922. p. 5. Retrieved February 2, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  18. ↑ "Police Pension Fund Film Will Be Shown Downtown Next Week". Pittsburgh Daily Post. September 10, 1922. p. 15 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  19. ↑ "Police Here to Play in New Film Drama". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. September 10, 1922. p. 12 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  20. ↑ "Babe Ruth Helps Exploit "In the Name of the Law" during second week of run". Moving Picture World. Chalmers Publishing Company.
  21. ↑ "Police Picture Exploited". Motion Picture News. New York, Motion Picture News, Inc.
  22. ↑ "LOCAL SCENES IN THRILLING MOVIE". The Pittsburgh Press. September 14, 1922. p. 29 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  23. ↑ "Film Men Honor Calhoun". The Pittsburgh Press. September 11, 1922. p. 16 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  24. ↑ "BLACKSTONE - "In the Name of the Law"". The Pittsburgh Press. September 17, 1922. p. 50 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
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