Danger Lights

Danger Lights is a 1930 American pre-Code drama film, directed by George B. Seitz, from a screenplay by James Ashmore Creelman.

Dan Thorn is a divisional boss on the Milwaukee Railroad, based in Miles City, Montana.

The film opens with a landslide across the track and Thorn dispatching, then accompanying, a repair crew to clear it.

Thorn is engaged to Mary Ryan, but his job leaves him unable to give her much time or attention.

When an engineer's wife dies, Thorn spends time with the man to keep him from getting drunk and endangering his railroad job.

That night, as they walk along the tracks through a rain storm toward the station, Doyle's foot becomes trapped in a railroad switch as it is remotely reset for the train.

The local doctor says Thorn will die unless he can be taken to Chicago for brain surgery within five hours, which would require breaking the speed record for the trip.

This latter process was called "Natural Vision" and was invented by film pioneers George Kirke Spoor and P. John Berggren.

Danger Lights is the only film created using this process, and the entire effort to move to wide-screen was shelved for several decades because of the increased costs of both production and presentation.

Danger Lights , original version
(full film, public domain)
Danger Lights , TV version
Screenshot from the film.