The Hour Before the Dawn

Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage) and made at the height of the Second World War, The Hour Before the Dawn stars Franchot Tone (Five Graves to Cairo) as Jim Hetherton, a pacifist Englishman who becomes a conscientious objector at the onset of WWII. The sultry Veronica Lake (So Proudly We Hail) plays Dora Bruckmann, the beautiful Austrian refugee whom Jim marries. But what neither he nor anyone else suspects is that Dora is actually an agent planted by the Nazis, and her main concern is finding the location of a secret airfield in the vicinity of the Hetherton estate in order to help Hitler’s planned invasion. By preying on his beliefs, Dora manages to manipulate Jim into potentially betraying his country. Billed as “a story of turbulent emotions, exciting times, impassioned love…and a sinister, deadly secret,” The Hour Before the Dawn was directed by Frank Tuttle (Lucky Jordan, This Gun for Hire), shot by John F. Seitz (The Lost Weekend) and scored by Miklós Rózsa (Secret Beyond the Door).