Summary
Salt-stung and reputation-battered, Jane Bernard—whose conjugal tapestry was unpicked through no stitch of her own—flees the echoing halls of a dismantled marriage for the mutable hush of a seaside resort, where waves erase footprints faster than society erases a woman’s name. Enter Robert White, monied yet attuned to the timbre of character rather than coin; his gaze reads Jane like a first edition pressed from humanity’s better angels. A pact to reconvene looms luminous until David Lennox—lounge-lizard, collector of waifs and reputations—recognizes Jane from a scandal-sheet caricature branding her adventuress. One whispered innuendo to the hoteliers and Jane’s credit evaporates like spindrift; jewels pawned, dignity docked, she still refuses Lennox’s transactional embrace. Fortune teases her with a diamond brooch dropped at dinner—Jane pockets it, hocks it, then, seized by reckless grace, lets roulette wheels sing her a siren song. White arrives in time to pluck her from the tables, but dawn finds her jewels already consigned to auction. There, Lennox drives the bidding like the devil at a christening until White’s calm voice outstrips him, restoring Jane’s gems and, symbolically, her name. She, in turn, slips the brooch back to its owner, completing the moral circuit: temptation weathered, identity reclaimed, love unfurling against a horizon that finally stays put.
Synopsis
Jane Bernard, a woman whose husband has divorced her through no fault of her own, leaves her home for the seashore in order to forget the past. She meets Robert White, a wealthy young man, who can judge the true qualities of a woman. They are mutually attracted to each other, and agree to meet again at the seaside resort. Upon her arrival at the fashionable hotel, Jane unwittingly attracts the attention of David Lennox, a man of means, who passes most of his time with the young women who throng the promenade. Lennox is puzzled in his endeavor to recollect where he has seen Jane in the past, and finally solves the mystery when he finds her picture in an illustrated weekly, which printed the news of her divorce and hints that she is leading the life of an adventuress. After being repulsed in his attentions, Lennox informs the hotel management that Jane is not a desirable guest, and in consequence she is requested to settle her account on the following day. In order to meet this obligation she is obliged to sell her jewels, and, being aware of this, Lennox again presses his attentions upon her. In the meantime, Mr. White has arrived at the hotel and is welcomed by Jane. While seated in the dining room of the hotel brooding over the future she picks up a diamond brooch from the floor, and in her financial extremity disposes of this in order to realize money. Then, swayed by an impulse which she cannot resist, she visits the gambling casino with other guests, and is winning heavily when White appears upon the scene and dissuades her from tempting Dame Fortune any further. On the following morning she attempts to redeem the jewels which she had sold, and learns that they have been sent to the auction room. Upon her arrival there she finds that the only bidder against her is Lennox, and when she has exhausted the last of her money in bidding, a voice on the outskirts of the crowd proceeds to outbid Lennox. Robert White is the successful bidder, and restores the jewels to Jane, who at once gives back to its rightful owner the diamond brooch which had been dropped on the floor of the dining room and picked up by Jane. The ending of the photoplay is a happy one, but there are many interesting situations before the climax.
Review Excerpt
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The shoreline as moral limbo
Danish cinema of the mid-twenties habitually gravitated toward the ethical fog that hovers between city and surf; In the Hour of Temptation weaponizes that fog. Director August B. Hansen’s camera drinks in the resort’s whitewashed balustrades and parasol-dotted esplanade, but every postcard-perfect frame quivers with the possibility that respectability may at any moment slide into brine. Jane’s arrival—shot in low-angle against a sky so overexposed it seems to bleac..."
