Behind the Door

This recently reconstructed and restored 1919 World War I drama has a well-earned notorious reputation. Hobart Bosworth plays Captain Krug, an American seaman of German ancestry who left the sea for the love of a woman—a banker's daughter named Alice (Jane Novak)—but he enlists when war is declared. Alice stows aboard his ship, which is torpedoed by a German submarine, after which she is taken prisoner while Krug vows to take revenge on the sadistic commander (Wallace Beery) who leaves him to drown. The film both confronts the anti-German sentiment in America during the war in its portrait of Krug as a brave and committed American and it embraces the stereotype of the bloodthirsty German "Hun" with Beery's U-boat captain, who preys upon the helpless Alice, tossing her to his sex-starved men to be raped and murdered. Krug eventually takes his vengeance offscreen, but the intertitles leave no doubt about the transgressive nature of his revenge: "I told him if I ever caught him I'd skin him alive. But he died before I finished." A minor classic with a brutal edge, Behind the Door features a vivid performance by Bosworth as a stalwart hero driven to violence, and strong direction by filmmaker Irvin Willat. This Blu-ray/DVD Combo set presents the new restoration (with missing footage reconstructed using film stills) along with an alternate, re-edited Russian version—both with a lovely score by Stephen Horne—and extras that include an interview with silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, a restoration featurette, outtakes, a gallery of stills and artwork, and a booklet with photos and essays. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)