The Hour Before the Dawn (1944)

Director:

Frank Tuttle

Writers:

Michael Hogan (writer)
W. Somerset Maugham (novel)

Release Date:

7 May 1945 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama | War

Tagline:

W. Somerset Maugham's most savage portrait of a dangerous woman!

Plot:

A beautiful Austrian refugee in England--who is also a Nazi agent--marries a scholarly English pacifist. He nives near a secret military base she needs to get information about so she can help in Hitler's planned invasion of England. |

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Cast

Franchot Tone	...	Jim Hetherton
Veronica Lake	...	Dora Bruckmann
John Sutton	...	Roger Hetherton
Binnie Barnes	...	May Heatherton
Henry Stephenson	...	Gen. Hetherton
Philip Merivale	...	Sir Leslie Buchanon
Nils Asther	...	Kurt van der Breughel
Edmund Breon	...	Freddy Merritt
David Leland	...	Tommy Hetherton
Aminta Dyne	...	Hertha Parkins
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Otto Reichow	...	German pilot

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S

Filming Locations:

Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Turgid Somerset Maugham thriller

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This film is generally regarded as the beginning of Veronica Lake's decline from major stardom. She plays an Austrian refugee living in an English stately home at the beginning of the war. The pacifist son of the family, played extremely well by Franchot Tone, falls for her unaware that she is really a Nazi spy trying to find out the location of a secret airfield in the vicinity. Veronica manages the accent quite well but her performance is flat and lacking in energy. To be fair she doesn't get much assistance from the script which seems unsure how to treat her character. It doesn't help that there is no chemistry between her and Tone and that her famous hairstyle (apart from one brief scene) is rigidly knotted for most of the film. Binnie Barnes is downright irritating as an ex-actress who has married in to the aristocracy. Her response to an air raid is to rush and put on her make-up before leading everyone in a rousing chorus of 'Roll Out The Barrel'! It's extremely slow only comes to life in the last 10 minutes with Veronica unmasked and murdered by Tone. The 75 minute running time is unusually short for a Paramount A feature with several key scenes including the round up of the spy ring and Veronica's death not shown on screen. Evidence of post production tampering perhaps?