L'instinct qui veille

BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY (1919) was one of the major successes of Canadian film pioneer Nell Shipman. It has the distinction of being the oldest surviving Canadian feature film and was also the subject of a great deal of controversy because of Shipman's nude outdoor bathing scene at the beginning. Based on a then well known Canadian story about a heroic dog (think THE CALL OF THE WILD), the movie was shot under extremely harrowing conditions.

Much of the action takes place on ice flows and was shot at temperatures as low as 60 degrees below zero. One of the principal actors developed pneumonia and died during the shooting. Shipman was a virtual one woman show on this project. In addition to starring, she also wrote, co-produced, and co-directed without credit. The film was officially credited to a director named David Hartford.

The second feature SOMETHING NEW (1920) features a novel twist on the old Western theme of kidnapping and rescuing the damsel in distress. The hero, instead of riding a horse, drives a car. The film was primarily financed by the Maxwell Car Company (Jack Benny's car) and serves as a large scale ad for their product.

The car goes over rugged terrain and along cliffs that no vehicle at the time would dream of doing. The result is a delightful spoof of traditional Westerns that manages to be exciting at the same time. This time Nell gets a directing credit. Originally available on VHS as part of Milestone Film's EQUAL TIME: THE WOMEN OF CINEMA - THE FILMMAKERS series. For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

It's a thrill to see this excellent film on video (Milestone, 2000). Nell Shipman was an extraordinary woman and it's great to see her work being made available to a wide audience. The scenes of her with wild animals, part of the menagerie she kept in northern Idaho, are extraordinary, and the climactic chase is very suspenseful. The restoration by D.J. Turner of the National Archives of Canada is wonderful, and the music by Phil Carli is appropriate. Alternate piano scores for this and Something New, Shipman's wacky car chase film, from live performances, available from me.

This story is based loosely on a novel, not by Jack London, but similar to his "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild" in genre. It has been freely adapted to give most exposure to Nell Shipman who even in the flat lighting usual in the 1919 era comes across as a very capable "Jane Alexander" type. The simple story of villainy stemming from single-minded lust is confusingly told. That may be the result, though, of the difficulties of "restoration" of the old film. There are some excellent scenes that evoke the dreadful loneliness of the arctic winters. It's not a great old museum piece, but interesting and worth a watch.

Contrived story surrounds a woman who is being blackmailed by a ship's captain who has killed her father and threatens to kills her ailing husband. She's saved by a dog. This is lifted a level above most of its ilk by the quality of its dark, harsh vision: from the first, we're in an arctic canada wher ruthlessness is the rule, as a dog's owner is killed in a bar for no reason (except that he's a "chinaman") much to the amusement of the bar's denizens. Good atmosphere.

Hard to rate this thing on anything other than a funny reminder of

how Canada was and will always be renowned for Mounties,

snow, and wildlife. The scandalous "nude scene" where Nell Shipman is bathing

under a waterfall is what gave this film an audience, but definitely

not why it's still around today. It's actually a decent story where the

spirit of a dead Eskimo is incarnated into a husky, but that angle

doesn't really have any significance until the end of the film when

it's revisited. Most surprisingly, I found, was how progressive of a role Nell had

way back in 1919. She drives the plot and essentially rescues

herself from a lot of the danger, something Hollywood is still

reluctant to do. It wasn't actually the first feature film made in Canada

("Evangeline" was in 1913), but it's the earliest one left that has

been preserved. If for no other reason, you gotta check it our just

for that!