Hell's Four Hundred

{{short description|1926 film}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox film | name = Hell's Four Hundred | image = Hell's Four Hundred.jpg | caption = | director = John Griffith Wray | producer = William Fox | writer = Bradley King | based_on = {{basedon|"The Just and the Unjust"||Vaughn Kester}} | starring = {{ubl|Margaret Livingston|Harrison Ford|Henry Kolker}} | music = | editing = | cinematography = Karl Struss | studio = Fox Film | distributor = Fox Film | released = {{Film date|1926|03|14}} | runtime = 60 minutes | country = United States | language = Silent (English intertitles) | budget = | gross = }} '''''Hell's Four Hundred''''', sometimes listed as '''''Hell's 400''''', is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by John Griffith Wray and starring Margaret Livingston, Harrison Ford, and Henry Kolker.<ref>Solomon p. 297</ref> An allegorical dream sequence towards the end of the film where the Vance character visualizes her sins as monsters was shot using two-strip Technicolor.<ref>[https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/H/HellsFourHundred1926.html Progressive Silent Film List: ''Hell’s 400''] at silentera.com</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Soister |first1=John T. |author-link1= |last2=Nicolella |first2=Henry |author-link2= |last3=Joyce |first3=Steve |author-link3= |last4=Long |first4=Harry H. |author-link4= |title= American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913-1929 |publisher=McFarland |volume=1 |year=2014 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |pages=710–711 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ajXwxJuYd5gC |isbn=978-0-7864-3581-4}}</ref>

==Plot== As described in a film magazine review,<ref>{{cite journal |last= |first= |title=''Hell's 400'' |journal=The Film Daily |volume=36 |issue=51 |date=May 30, 1926 |page=39 |url=https://archive.org/details/filmdaily3536newy/page/1547/mode/1up |publisher=Wid's Films and Film Folks, Inc. |location=New York City |accessdate=31 October 2023}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref> gold digging chorus girl Evelyn Vance seeks a rich daddy to take care of her. Evelyn marries the wealthy Marshall Langham thereby double-crossing her boss John Gilmore, who had schemed to use her to rope Marshall into a scandal because of the debts that he owed Gilmore. Gilmore is killed and district attorney John North, sworn enemy of Gilmore and his gambling empire, is held on circumstantial evidence. Evelyn could clear North of the crime, but in so doing she would expose her husband Marshall who is actually the guilty party. When Marshall is on his deathbed, he makes a final statement that clears North as he is engaged to his sister Barbara. At this point Evelyn has a vision in which each of her sins is materialized as a monster. Evelyn wakes and decides, at the final fade-out, to go to a picnic given by an iceman and not go after another rich daddy.

==Cast== {{Cast listing| * Margaret Livingston as Evelyn Vance * Harrison Ford as John North * Henry Kolker as John Gilmore * Marceline Day as Barbara Langham * Wallace MacDonald as Marshall Langham * Rodney Hildebrand as Bill Montgomery * Amber Norman as Vivian }}

==Preservation== With no prints of ''Hell's Four Hundred'' located in any film archives,<ref>[https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.6024/ Library of Congress / FIAF American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: Hell's 400]</ref> it is a lost film.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==Bibliography== * Solomon, Aubrey. ''The Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography''. McFarland, 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-7864-6286-5}}

==External links== {{commons category|Hell's Four Hundred}} *{{IMDb title|0016954}}

Category:1926 films Category:1926 drama films Category:American silent drama films Category:American silent feature films Category:1926 English-language films Category:Fox Film films Category:Films directed by John Griffith Wray Category:American black-and-white films Category:Silent films in color Category:1926 American films Category:English-language drama films