AllMovie

Produced by poverty-row Gotham Pictures, Silent Power calls upon the talents of two of the studio's busiest employees: character actor Ralph Lewis and director Frank O'Connor. An anti-capital-punishment tract, the film casts Lewis as executioner John Rollins, who treats his work dispassionately, caring little whether his victims are deserving of death. Rollins' chickens come home to roost when his own son Rob (Charles Delaney) is convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. Though it breaks his heart, Rollins insists upon placing duty over love and pulls the switch -- whereupon he promptly faints dead away. Upon recovering, Rollins learns that his son has been spared by the unexpected last-minute intervention of the real murderer.