Winds of Chance

This film is based on a Rex Beach (The Spoilers) story and stars Anna Q. Nilsson as "the Countess," a woman who runs a hotel and saloon in Dawson. Also starred is Ben Lyon as the naive man who comes to the Klondike to find gold but finds much more.

Much of the story involves a group of people making their way across the wilderness to the gold fields and Dawson. There is an excellent sequence where they must go down river through the rapids on weird flat-bottomed boats. Another sequence has them crossing the frozen wasteland and reminds of Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH, which was filming about this same time.

Although the film is missing reel 2, the story flows well and is beautifully tinted. Excellent direction by Frank Lloyd.

The cast is impressive. Along with Nilsson and Lyon we also get Victor McLaglen as the cheerful 'Poleon, Viola Dana as the innocent girl, Dorothy Sebastian as the vengeful saloon girl, Hobart Bosworth as the hapless Sam Kirby, Claude Gillingwater and Charles Crockett as the comedy relief, Fred Kohler as the cheat, and Philo McCullough as the Count.

This is top-notch entertainment.

Ben Lyon is on his way to the Yukon for the gold rush, but there's a lot of other stuff going on, what with him and Anna Q. Nilsson being in love but she can't marry him because she's married to rotter Philo McCullough. Then there's Viola Dana, whose father, Hobart Bosworth gets killed on the way. She's rescued by everyone at one time or another, but mostly by voyageur Victor McLaglen. What else? Oh, yeah, there's Claude Gillingwater and Charles Crockett as partnered prsopectors who argue constantly, Dorothy Sebastian as the dance-hall girl with a passion for Lyon, and about two thousand extras, looks like.

It's based on yet another Rex Beach novel about the Yukon Gold Rush. Beach had been a popular source for such films since the immense success of the 1914 version of THE SPOILERS. It's clear that First National decided they had a winner on their hands, so they gave director Frank Lloyd his head, hired a first-rate cast, and let him build Dawson City on the Truckee. Yet I kept wondering if it was necessary to show this detail or that scene. Maybe they could have cut the pursuit of the bad guys a bit short of the U.S. border. At just over two hours, this is an epic, but there's nothing about the gold fields themselves. Only the boat trip down the whitewater river offers much in the way of thrills.