Behind the Door

In his small town Oscar Krug is regarded with suspicion by his neighbours because of his German name. When America enters the war he enlists and goes to sea, and his wife Alice secretly boards his ship. During a German submarine attack Alice is taken by the commander’s men and never comes back. From then on Krug lives for one thing, to find that man, and when the chance comes he takes it. Irvin Willat directed the seventy three minute Thomas Ince production, with Hobart Bosworth and Wallace Beery in the leads. The film is counted among the harshest American productions of its period, and what survived of it, an incomplete print, a reel of outtakes and the remains of an export print, was restored in 2016 through the joint work of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Library of Congress and Gosfilmofond.