The Drums of Jeopardy (1931 film)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
The Drums of Jeopardy
File:The Drums of Jeopardy FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by George B. Seitz
Produced by Phil Goldstone (producer)
Written by Harold McGrath (novel The Drums of Jeopardy)
Florence Ryerson (writer)
Starring Warner Oland as Boris Karlov
Music by Val Burton
Cinematography Arthur Reed
Edited by Otto Ludwig
Distributed by Tiffany Pictures
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • March 2, 1931 (1931-03-02)
Running time
 75 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Drums of Jeopardy is a 1931 American Pre-Code horror-mystery film directed by George B. Seitz.

The name "Boris Karlov" was used from MacGrath's book and for the 1922 Broadway play, but by 1923 with actor Boris Karloff using the similar sounding variation, the film version renamed the character, played by Wallace Beery, "Gregor Karlov". In the 1931 film version, however, with Warner Oland playing the character, the mad scientist's name is restored to "Boris Karlov" less than a year before Frankenstein would make Karloff a household word for generations.

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in 2015, with funding provided by The Packard Humanities Institute, The Drums of Jeopardy is the best Fu Manchu movie Warner Oland never made. No sooner had Oland finished playing Dr. Fu Manchu in two pictures for Paramount than little Tiffany Pictures grabbed him along with Fu Manchu scenarist Florence Ryerson and set them about a new rendering of Harold MacGrath’s venerable melodrama The Drums of Jeopardy, previously filmed with Wallace Beery in 1923.In the Paramount films Oland was a brilliant Chinese doctor who vows to destroy the entire Petrie family when his wife and child are killed in the Boxer Rebellion; here, as the brilliant Slavic chemist Dr. Boris Karlov, he vows to exterminate the Petroffs, a family of White Russians whose black sheep son is responsible for the compromise and death of his daughter. The formula is adhered to precisely, handsomely produced by Phil Goldstone and directed by George Seitz (an old hand at Pearl White serials and later factotum of the Andy Hardy features for MGM). The Drums of Jeopardy is a late showcase for Oland’s ethnic diversity before Charlie Chan would claim him forever. Karlov’s rabid Bolshevik leanings are limned by a gleeful sadism (awaiting torture, a stoic Petroff assures Karlov that he will make no outburst while Karlov cheerfully admonishes him, “But I want you to cry out!”). Oland’s nemesis is Clara Blandick, the heroine’s bulldog spinster aunt, and seeing Auntie Em spar with and hold her own against Dr. Fu Manchu is worth the price of admission alone. Tiffany productions are an especially endangered species. Reissued as The Mark of Terror then sold briefly by Screen Gems to early television in 1954, The Drums of Jeopardy film elements eventually deteriorated to the brink of total extinction. The restoration has been serendipitously cobbled together from six different sources. —Scott MacQueen

Production: Tiffany Productions, Inc. Distribution: Tiffany Productions, Inc. Producer: Phil Goldstone. Director: George B. Seitz. Screenwriter: Florence Ryerson. Based on the novel The Drums of Jeopardy by Harold McGrath. Cinematographer: Arthur Reed. Art Direction: Fay Babcock. Editor: Otto Ludwig. Cast: Warner Oland, June Collyer, Lloyd Hughes, Clara Blandick, Mischa Auer. 35mm, b/w, 65 min. Restored from two reels of the original nitrate picture and track negatives, two reels of 35mm nitrate composite print and three original 16mm reduction prints. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to: Greg Luce—Sinister Cinema; Karl Thiede; Rita Belda—Sony Pictures Corporation; the Library of Congress; The British Film Institute.

Cast

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=The_Drums_of_Jeopardy_(1931_film)&oldid=713674486"