The Call of the Cumberlands

I've just taken a look at this movie, recorded off of TCM. It was preceded by a group of distinguished woman who referred to Producer/Screenwriter Julia Crawford Ivers as the director.... presumably with credited director Frank Lloyd deployed as a beard.

Regardless of who did what, let us consider the movie on its own terms.

Dustin Farnum lives in feud country, and he's been marked as the next leader of his clan. However, when painter Michael Hallyard boards with his family while he works on scenery, Farnum is fascinated. Given an opportunity to try his hand, he impresses the artist, who urges him to come study with him in New York. Eventually, he goes, leaving behind Winifred Kingston. Farnum encounters hostility among the upper-crust crowd, but perseveres; yet when news comes of a crisis back home, he heads back for a showdown.

It's a well-told story, and the camerawork by Dal Clawson is first-rate. The print had its flaws, but the first and fourth reel are pristine, and show magnificent scenery and composition.

The period from 1912 through about 1920 seems to have been a golden age for women in Hollywood, with writers, producers and directors, as well as starring in front of the camera. Many of the details have been lost, because of the fluid relationships and the confusion raised by later auteurist theories of film-making. Modern vagueness about what a producer does, and the concept of the director as a sort of battlefield general responsible for everything about a movie may or may not apply to any movie today, nor did it a century ago. Whatever Julia Crawford did on this movie back then is obscured, but as one of the writers and the producer, her participation was undoubtedly key.... as was the participation of the cameraman and the actors. In the end, I believe a movie cannot be an "auteurist" artifact, given the large number of artists cooperating in its production.

Dustin Farnum stars as Kentuckian Samson South, whose family has been engaged in a blood feud with another clan since the time he was a youngster. When his true love Sally finds an injured landscape painter, Samson demonstrates his skill with the canvas. The painter invites Samson to study with him in New York City, where the mountain man becomes "civilized." It's not all smooth sailing, and there are hints of a romantic entanglement with the painter's sister. For those interested in this sort of thing, there is some brief nudity as Samson paints female models. Samson is eventually summoned back to the mountains when the feud heats up again.

The film is a decent adaptation of the novel, but with a running time of just over an hour, most of the characters can only walk in and out of the movie. The novel provides plenty of backstory, and deeper relationships, which are sorely missing from the film. There is a brief scene showing that Samson got a haircut (although it's not obvious at all), but the significance is lost here. The conclusion, while dramatic, fails to show how the feud is actually settled (both clans eventually unite).

Still, this is a well-made film, despite some deterioration of the print. Farnum is very good in his role and knows how to act without the histrionics that his brother William often displayed. Winifred Kingston, as Sally, is a revelation, and definitely needed more screen time.