THE GREAT WHITE TRAIL – Doris Kenyon
The Great White Trail (1917)
Direction: Leopold Wharton and Theodore Wharton
Screenplay: Gardner Hunting and Leopold Wharton
Cast: Doris Kenyon, Paul Gordon, Richard Stewart, Thomas Holding, Louise Hotaling, Hans Roberts, Edgar Davenport
Some films have "everything except the kitchen sink" as the saying goes. Well, the 1917 melodrama The Great White Trail has a plot that has everything and about three kitchen sinks as well, as it briskly makes its way from one improbable situation after another before everything is happily resolved in the final reel.
Doris Kenyon plays a happy young wife and mother. When her irresponsible brother appeals to her for help, her husband (Paul Gordon) misunderstands the situation, believing her to be unfaithful. He turns her out of the house, denying he’s the father of her child. Kenyon briefly goes mad and in her madness leaves her baby in a tree before she collapses. The baby is then found by the dog of a minister, who ends up raising the little girl.
Distraught over the loss of her child, Kenyon goes to Alaska to work as a nurse. When her husband realizes the truth, he follows her there, where he crosses paths with a villain known as "The Vulture" (Richard Stewart) — who knocks him over the head. The husband then suffers from amnesia. And it doesn’t end there.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone — even in 1917 — really took The Great White Trail seriously. The plot elements and cliched devices stretch the limits of credulity to the splintering point. Still, taken in the right spirit the film is a deftly handled, unpretentious, fun effort.
Reviewed at Cinesation 2009
© James Bazen
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Tags: Cinesation 2009, Classic Movies, Doris Kenyon, Film Reviews, Gardner Hunting, Leopold Wharton, Paul Gordon, Silent Films, The Great White Trail, Theodore Wharton
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