Hop - The Devil's Brew

Hop - The Devil's Brew (1916)

Lydia Jansen is happily married to a young customs inspector, but she harbors a dark secret. She is addicted to smoking opium or in slang parlance “hop.” To keep her secret, she willingly pays the blackmail her maid extorts from her having learned of Lydia’s habit through her own fiancée who is part of the ring importing the devil’s brew. Something unknown to all is that the operation is run by Lydia’s father an important politician in the city where this all occurs. As her husband’s investigation tightens the noose on the organization Lydia faces a crisis.

Date of release
1916-02-14
Runtime
50m
Genres
Drama
Director
Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley

Casting

Interesting facts

Hop, the Devil's Brew is a 1916 American silent film directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley. Inspired by an exposé of opium trafficking in the Saturday Evening Post, the semidocumentary film starred Smalley as a Customs official and Weber as his opium-addicted wife.

Production

Hop, the Devil's Brew was the fourth picture produced by Bluebird Photoplays, a studio set up by Universal aimed at producing high-quality, feature-length dramas. Weber was inspired by a Saturday Evening Post series of articles by Rufus Steele about the government's war against the opium trade. It was one of a number of films she made during an arc in her career in which she focused on controversial social issues.

It was shot on location in San Francisco, reportedly including Chinatown opium dens, the waterfront, and areas of criminal activity.

According to the producers, the film was sanctioned by and made with the assistance of the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Secret Service. Scenes about illegal opium traffic and law enforcement methods were advertised as based on actual cases.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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