After Five (1915)

Sub-Genres - Crime Thriller  |   Run Time - 44 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Janiss Garza

It was probably pretty simple for William C. DeMille to adapt this comedy stage hit to the screen -- he and his brother, director Cecil B. DeMille, were the playwrights. When his broker friend offers big returns, Ted Ewing (Edward Abeles) invests both his own money and that of his fiancée, Nora Heldreth (Betty Schade). But then the broker disappears and Ewing, believing that he has squandered his girl's money, takes out an insurance policy on himself and then sets out to get "accidentally" killed. Of course, nothing he tries works -- he falls in front of a train only to have it switch tracks on him, a fall from a window is broken by an awning, etc. Since members of a black hand society seem to be following him around, Ewing finally gets the idea of hiring them to murder him and gives the payment to Oki, his Japanese valet (Sessue Hayakawa). But then the broker returns and Ewing discovers that the money he invested has doubled. Now he has to figure out how to call off the black hand men, who have followed him and Nora to her aunt's cottage in Maine. Eventually a deal is worked out to everyone's satisfaction.

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Keywords

foil [thwart], suicide, gangster, killing, murder, stock-market, suicide-attempt