"Twelve Miles Out" 1927

Cast: John Gilbert, Ernest Torrence, Joan Crawford (as Jane), Eileen Percy, Paulette Duval, Dorothy Sebastian, Gwen Lee, Edward Earle, Bert Roach, Tom O'Brien


Release date - July 9, 1927

Running time - 85 minutes (8 reels)

Director - Jack Conway

Writing Credits - Joseph Farnham (titles), William Anthony McGuire (play), A. P. Younger

Producer - Unknown

Cinematographer - Ira H. Morgan

Costumes - Rene Hubert

Studio - MGM - Black and White - Silent

Movie Synopsis

Jerry (John Gilbert) and Red (Ernest Torrence) are fierce rivals in their love for the ladies, diamond and gun smuggling and booze running during the strict prohibition days. When Jerry (John Gilbert) takes Jane's (Joan) home as a hideout, Jane (Joan) threatens to turn him into the police, he kidnaps her and her fiancee, John (Edward Earle) and holds them on his boat. Now in love with the bad boy, Jerry (John Gilbert), Jane must watch as the long time rivals, Jerry (John Gilbert) and Red (Ernest Torrence) shoot it out once and for all.

Interesting Trivia

Shot in thirty-nine days at a cost of $462,000, the profit was a small, but a respectable, $125,000. There are approximately twenty minutes lost from the version of this film we see today, so it is a little choppy in some spots. However, the remaining 62 minutes cut from the original 85 minute version is worth seeing, if only to witness a good example of early silent Hollywood drama.

Based on the play Twelve Miles Out by William Anthony McGuire (New York, 16 Nov 1925).


Box Office Receipts - $893,000.
Inflation Value in 2007: $10,607,505.63

Photos

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Movie Posters/Lobby Cards etc...

Reviews

Mae Tinee of the Chicago Tribune had this to say, "Joan Crawford's Jane is a character played with charm, force and restraint."

Robert E. Sherwood in Life (1927) said, "It is an amusing, exciting picture, well played by Mr. Gilbert, Ernest Torrence and Joan Crawford, and competently directed by Jack Conway."

Motion Picture Magazine (October 1927) said,"The reviewers drive home two points in their reports on this picture -- the fact that Ernest Torrence just about steals the show and that the film breaks the bounds of what might be called movie tradition by having a sad ending. Aside from this, the critics are, as a whole, of the opinion that Twelve Miles Out contains qualities which will command the interest of theater patrons, in spite of the fact that they don't go out of their way to praise it. This is the film, according to report, that Gilbert himself was greatly dissatisfied with, but, all in all, his reported fears are not sustained by the reviewers. Twelve Miles Out, says Edwin Schallert in the Los Angeles Times, "is a picture that has certain fundamental weaknesses because of its plot and the setting of the story, and because several very improbable incidents are introduced. It is, however, an interesting picture..."


New York Review (1927) said, "Joan Crawford is lovely as Jane, and though her part affords her little variety, she makes a lot out of it, and scores a pronounced success."

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