The Grub Stake

Nell Shipman lived life as wildly as her adventure movies. The British Canadian native was one of those legendary figures who had so much talent that her films couldn't contain all the exurberance she wanted to exhibit. She earned her sobriquet 'The First Lady of Canadian Cinema' by shear grit and determination. The story of how she produced her final feature film, February 1923's "The Grub-Stake" is a case study on the adversity Shipman faced, yet still released a heart-throbbing, edge-of-your-seat motion picture.

Shipman was multi-talented in every phase of filmmaking. She acted, scripted, produced, and directed many of her films, especially her later one. She personaaly owned over 200 animals, many of which appear in her movies. 1919 'Back to God's Country' was the actress' most financially successful project, but she was determined to make an even grandeur movie in "The Grub-Stake." Shipman always exhibited an independent spirit. After stints with several major film studios beginning in 1915, she decided to go on her own, establishing her very own movie studio in 1918 after recovering from the Spanish Flu. Marrying young to film producer Ernest Shipman, she began a six-year love affair with Bert Van Tuyle, who directed "The Grub-Stake." But during its filming, Van Tuyle was literally losing his mind, and Nell left him later in 1923.

Meanwhile, she was determined to make "The Grub-Stake." She sold her California house, their car, and cashed in their life savings to fund the $180,000 budgeted film. Contributions from 300 subscribers also help with the finances. She saved money by using her own script as well as editing the raw prints.

Her script about a shady Alaskan businessman who entices Nell and her father to Alaska to run a laundromat, where he would grubstake, or provide all the equipment and supplies but the pair would have to share their profits with him. When arriving in the nothern state, however, she found her only business opportunity was to work in a dance hall. Fleeing the situation into the wilds gave Shipman the chance to film the stunning scenery in (actually) Idaho and to act with her many pets, including her bear. A cliff-hanging ending is reminiscent of earlier film serials, with Shipman finding herself in physical desparate straights.

Unfortunately for her, American Releasing Corporation, acting as the film's distributor, went bankrupt without paying her an advance. This was also the demise of her film company. She produced, wrote and acted in one more short, but her days in front of the camera were over. She turned to writing books and scripts, with one of her screenplays serving as a 1935 vehicle, 'Wings In The Dark' with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant.

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.

An innocent girl (Nell Shipman as Faith Diggs) is lured to Dawson in the Yukon with her ailing father (Walt Whitman as The Skipper) by gambler Mark Leroy (Alfred Allen) with a promise of a grub stake to start a laundry for the miners. On the ship, he asks her to marry him instead, but tells her to keep the marriage secret. When they arrive, she overhears the gambler trying to sell her to the owner of a dance hall and is told that he is already married and that he lures girls to the Yukon with empty promises.

She runs off into the wilderness with her father and an old miner (George Berrell as Malamute Mike) who is looking for a lost claim, taking supplies, dogs and a dog sled from the gambler. They get lost and separated, but she finds the lost claim while her father is nursed by a woman living in the woods.

The gambler reports her and her father as thieves and a Monty (Cecil Van Auker) arrives but he waits until her father is recovered enough to travel. The the miner goes back to Dawson to register his claim, but the gambler gets a gang together and forces the miner to return to the claim in order to steal it.

After a chase on a cliff, the gambler falls to his death but she is saved.

An unusual independent American film from a time when the studio control of the distribution channels made it difficult for independents. As in most Nell Shipman movies, she seems most interested in the 'wild' animals that she plays with.

Nell Shipman and her father, wheelchair-bound, accordion-playing Walt Whitman -- not the poet -- want to get in on the gold rush Dawson way. Alfred Allen agrees to it, and to marrying her, but he only wants her for his *ahem* dance hall. When she finds out, she and Whitman take food and Allen's team of huskies and head off with George Berrell, who's misplaced his fabulous mine.

Eventually they all get separated, but Berrell gets help from Lillian Leighton, and Miss Shipman cavorts with the wild animals, until Leighton's son, Hugh Thompson, happens upon her, right where the lost mine is!

I suppose that's considered tight plotting, but it all seems a might coincidental to me, and Miss Shipman's uncanny ability to get along with bears, deer, and skunks makes me think that Walt Disney might have seen this movie some time before he made his first animated feature. Still, scenery in Idaho and Washington, where this was shot, is good-looking, and so is Miss Shipman; there's some good humor shown here and there, and Miss Shipman's comments to the Allmighty must have pleased the liberal Christians who also thought bears make fine playmates for a young woman.