Beverly of Graustark

In this short feature, Linda Arvidson is on the way to visit her friend, the princess of Graustark. She is captured by Charles Perley, a goat hunter with exquisite manners. He is actually the disguised prince of a neighboring country who has been driven out of power by his evil brother. By the usual mistakes that occur in this this sort of Ruritanian fiction, he mistakes her for the Princess and sends her on her way. Soon, however, he and she are involved in various goings-on in Graustark and his own country.

It's based on the novel by George Barr McCutcheon, who rose to prominence with his novel GRAUSTARK. He was soon called upon to write more Prisoner-of-Zenda-style romances, even though he preferred his stage work and efforts like BREWSTER'S MILLIONS. It was produced by Biograph during their collapse as a film-production company, and it shows. Even though the acting and photography are excellent, it was saddled with numerous titles to explain what was going on. This reduced it to an "illustrated text" movie, in which the titles tell you what you are about to see, reducing the actual movie to largely an afterthought.

Miss Arvidson was actually Mrs. D.W. Griffith. They had separated about six years earlier, although they did not divorce until the 1930s. She had left Biograph in 1912 for what should have been a better contract, but the company collapsed within a year. She made one more movie after this and retired from the screen.

The story was remade in 1926, with Marion Davies in the lead. I assume it is a better movie.

The 1914 version of the 1904 novel by george mccutcheon. He had also written the original brewster's millions, which has also been remade numerous times! This 1914 version of beverly of graustark currently only seems to be available at the library of congress link loc dot gov item 2012600253 which is very silent, and the sound track of music seems to be lost as well. The picture quality is pretty bad, but maybe it will be restored at some point. Turner classics also shows the 1926 restored version occasionally, starring the larger than life marion davies and antonio moreno. In this early version, beverly is hiding out, while the rightful ruler dantan has also escaped, and is posing as a goat herder. Some fun locations used... would be interesting to know where they were done. Honestly, it's a little tough to make it through this one, with no sound at all, and such bad picture quality, but at almost 110 years, we're lucky it's still around in any form. There's a love triangle, or quadrangle going on. Sadly, there are summary cards now and then, with very few dialog cards, so we never really know exactly what's going on. Not sure what to rate this version, but it's a required field, so will give it a 6... hopefully it will be restored at some point, if more copies are found. Stars linda arvidson, huge film star, who was married to another huge hollywood mover and shaker, d.w. Griffith for thirty years. The trivia section here says there's another remake planned for 2025!