The Hour before the Dawn * (1944, Franchot Tone, Veronica Lake, John Sutton, Binnie Barnes) – Classic Movie Review 13,537

The 1944 war drama film The Hour before the Dawn stars Franchot Tone as a British conscientious objector and Veronica Lake as young Austrian woman he marries, who turns out to be a German agent.

Director Frank Tuttle’s 1944 Paramount Pictures American war drama film The Hour before the Dawn stars Franchot Tone, Veronica Lake, John Sutton, and Binnie Barnes, along with Henry Stephenson, Philip Merivale, Nils Asther, Edmund Breon, Mary Gordon, and David Leyland.

A 1942 novel by W Somerset Maugham is adapted as a wartime movie yarn about rich British school headmaster and conscientious objector Jim Hertherton (Franchot Tone) finding out that young Austrian woman Dora Bruckmann (Veronica Lake), his family governess and then new wife, is a German agent.

The Hour before the Dawn is in the interesting category, but it is an ambling, stodgy and none too convincing spy drama, directed with little sense of urgency or style, and with miscast star actors.

However the miscast actors try hard if none too well, the script is earnestly and sincerely written, and the film is competently enough made. There is little impression, though, why Maugham’s book became a best seller, and the film failed at the box office, helping to tarnish Veronica Lake’s star allure. It’s hard to accept her as an unconvincing Austrian.

Paramount bought the film rights to the book, which became a best seller, before Pearl Harbor was published, but then stalled filming it because it was about a conscientious objector and the US was now no longer neutral. Later Paramount decided to go ahead anyway, and it became the first film produced by William Dozier, a story editor at the studio.

Shooting started in April 1943, with night scenes shot safely in Phoenix, Arizona, and it was released on May 10, 1944 (New York City).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,537

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