One Exciting Night is a 1922 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Gothic

Gothic fiction

Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...

 silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 Mystery film

Mystery film

Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...

 directed by D. W. Griffith

D. W. Griffith

David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...

.

The plot revolves around the murder of a bootlegger

Rum-running

Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...

 and the attempts of the cast to uncover the true murderer. The film, inspired by the Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing...

 and Avery Hopwood

Avery Hopwood

James Avery Hopwood , was the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.-Biography:...

 play The Bat (1920), led to the production of similar "murder mystery/old dark house" films such as The Bat

The Bat (1926 film)

The Bat is a silent film based on the 1920 hit Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda...

(1926) based on the play, The Cat and the Canary

The Cat and the Canary (1927 film)

The Cat and the Canary is an American silent horror film adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charles "Charlie" Wilder, and Creighton Hale as...

(1927), The Old Dark House

The Old Dark House

The Old Dark House is an American comedy horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein, also released by Universal Studios.-Background:...

(1932) and even the fabled London After Midnight

London After Midnight (film)

London After Midnight aka The Hypnotist is a silent mystery film with horror overtones produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite...

(1927) with Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney, Sr.

Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...

.

At the time of this film, Henry Hull

Henry Hull

Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor with a unique voice, most noted for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London .-Life and career:Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky...

 was starring on Broadway in the stage version of Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Cat and the Canary.

Cast

• Carol Dempster
  Carol Dempster
  Carol Dempster was an American film actress of the silent film era.-Biography:Born in Duluth, Minnesota, Dempster got her start in films as a protégé of legendary film director D.W. Griffith alongside other Griffith actresses of the mid-1910s Lillian and Dorothy Gish and Mae Marsh...
  
   as Agnes Harrington
• Henry Hull
  Henry Hull
  Henry Watterson Hull was an American character actor with a unique voice, most noted for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's Werewolf of London .-Life and career:Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky...
  
   as John Fairfax
• Morgan Wallace
  Morgan Wallace
  Morgan Wallace , was an American actor. He appeared in 28 films between 1914 and 1946, including It's a Gift and My Little Chickadee starring W.C. Fields and Mae West....
  
   as J. Wilson Rockmaine
• Margaret Dale as Mrs. Harrington
• Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack
  Charles Emmett Mack , was an American film actor during the silent film era. He appeared in 17 films between 1916 and 1927. Born Charles Emmett McNerney in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mack was a protégé of pioneering film director D. W...
  
  as A Guest
• Charles Croker-King as The Neighbor
• Porter Strong as Romeo Washington
• Frank Sheridan as Detective
• Frank Wunderlee as Samuel Jones
• Grace Griswold as Auntie Fairfax
• Irma Harrison as The Maid
• Herbert Sutch as Clary Johnson
• Percy Carr as The Butler