
Winthrop Chase is running for mayor on the prohibition ticket in a town where his irresponsible son Wint is infamous for his drunken sprees. Wint is in love with Joan Caretall, whose father Amos is a big political boss.


A mayor elected by mistake, a drunkard handed the keys to City Hall, a single frame that crackles like bootleg gin—The Great Accident is the kind of silent whirlwind that makes you rethink what redemption ever meant in the roaring twilight of 1920. The film opens on a tableau of moral rectitude: Winthrop Chase—portra...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Harry Beaumont

Harry Beaumont
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" A mayor elected by mistake, a drunkard handed the keys to City Hall, a single frame that crackles like bootleg gin—The Great Accident is the kind of silent whirlwind that makes you rethink what redemption ever meant in the roaring twilight of 1920. The film opens on a tableau of moral rectitude: Winthrop Chase—portrayed by Otto Hoffman with the stoop-shouldered gravitas of a man who has never laughed without first consulting the Bible—campaigning for prohibition beneath frayed bunting. The cam..."
Edfrid A. Bingham, Ben Ames Williams
United States


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