Report from Cinesation 2006: THE GRUB-STAKE (****) This 1923 Nell Shipman production is a rip-snorting action movie with enough plot for two or three ordinary Shipmans, happily with print quality that did full justice to its Alaskan photography.
At first it's a bit dismaying to see feminist role model Shipman trying to protect her virginity from a rotter who lured her to Alaska to become a dance hall girl-- virginity is for other silent actresses to worry about, Nell Shipman should be worrying about grizzly bears and rockslides. But soon she's got her invalid father lashed to the dogsled and she's off looking for gold, taking time out along the way to curse God face to face and to frolic amid nature's larger mammals (at which point God is let off for good behavior) before a two-fisted finale with a literal cliffhanger. This picture had everything but the Johnstown Flood in it, and accompanist Ben Model's playing gave it everything he had too. The only pity is that some of the titles were noticeably jittery-- an easily remedied glitch that really shouldn't even have been let out of a major national archive for a show like this.
At first it's a bit dismaying to see feminist role model Shipman trying to protect her virginity from a rotter who lured her to Alaska to become a dance hall girl-- virginity is for other silent actresses to worry about, Nell Shipman should be worrying about grizzly bears and rockslides. But soon she's got her invalid father lashed to the dogsled and she's off looking for gold, taking time out along the way to curse God face to face and to frolic amid nature's larger mammals (at which point God is let off for good behavior) before a two-fisted finale with a literal cliffhanger. This picture had everything but the Johnstown Flood in it, and accompanist Ben Model's playing gave it everything he had too. The only pity is that some of the titles were noticeably jittery-- an easily remedied glitch that really shouldn't even have been let out of a major national archive for a show like this.