Back to God's Country | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Hartford |
Written by | Nell Shipman |
Produced by | James Oliver Curwood Ernest Shipman (uncredited) |
Starring | Nell Shipman Charles Arling Wheeler Oakman Wellington A. Playter |
Cinematography | Dal Clawson Joseph Walker |
Edited by | Cyril Gardner |
Production company | Canadian Photoplays Ltd. |
Distributed by | First National Exhibitor's Circuit (later to become First National Pictures) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 73 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Back to God's Country is a 1919 Canadian drama film directed by David Hartford. It is one of the earliest Canadian feature films. The film starred and was co-written by Canadian actress Nell Shipman. With an estimated budget of over $67,000, it was the most successful silent film in Canadian history.
The film is noteworthy as it starred Shipman and was produced by her husband, Ernest. Shipman was one of the first women to do a nude scene on screen in the movie. [1] In 1918, they created a production company, Shipman-Curwood Producing Company, to produce Back to God's Country. The film was the only film the company would produce, and was based on a short story, "Wapi, the Walrus", by James Oliver Curwood. [2]
Curwood's story was adapted to the screen by Nell herself. She changed the protagonist of the film from a great dane to the female lead, Dolores. Shipman also shaped her character into a heroine, who saves her husband. Curwood was infuriated with Shipman, but commercially the film was extremely successful, posting a 300 percent profit and grossing a million-and-a-half dollars. [3] [4]
Back to God's Country was later screened at the 1984 Festival of Festivals as part of Front & Centre, a special retrospective program of artistically and culturally significant films from throughout the history of Canadian cinema. [5]
The film has been re-made twice by Hollywood, but the original version was believed to have been lost. However, a print of the original film was found in Europe, restored in 1985, and re-released. A copy of the film is in the Library of Congress film archive, [6] and it has been released on DVD by Milestone Films.
Gladys Louise Smith, known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress, producer, screenwriter and film studio founder. A pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood career that spanned five decades, Pickford was one of the most popular actresses of the silent film era. Beginning her film career in 1909, by 1916 Pickford became Hollywood's first millionaire, and at the height of her career had complete creative control of her films and was one of the most recognizable women in the world. Due to her popularity, unprecedented international fame, and success as an actress and businesswoman, she was known as the "Queen of the Movies". She was a significant figure in the development of film acting and is credited with having defined the ingénue type in cinema, a persona that also earned her the nickname "America's Sweetheart".
Cinema in Canada dates back to the earliest known display of film in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, in 1896. The film industry in Canada has been dominated by the United States, which has utilized Canada as a shooting location and to bypass British film quota laws, throughout its history. Canadian filmmakers, English and French, have been active in the development of cinema in the United States.
James Oliver Curwood was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books were often based on adventures set in the Hudson Bay area, the Yukon or Alaska and ranked among the top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early and mid 1920s, according to Publishers Weekly. At least one hundred and eighty motion pictures have been based on or directly inspired by his novels and short stories; one was produced in three versions from 1919 to 1953. At the time of his death, Curwood was the highest paid author in the world.
Nell Shipman was a Canadian actress, author, screenwriter, producer, director, animal rights activist and animal trainer. Her works often had autobiographical elements to them and reflected her passion for nature. She is best known for making a series of melodramatic adventure films based on the novels by American writer James Oliver Curwood in which she played the robust heroine known as the ‘girl from God’s country.'
Ingrid Veninger is a Canadian actress, writer, director, producer, and film professor at York University. Veninger began her career in show business as a child actor in commercials and on television; as a teen, she was featured in the CBC series Airwaves (1986–1987) and the CBS series Friday the 13th: The Series (1987–1990). In the 1990s, she branched out into producing, and, in 2003, she founded her own production company, pUNK Films, through which she began to work on her own projects as a writer and director.
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Forever is a 1921 American silent romance film, also known as Peter Ibbetson, that was written by Ouida Bergère and directed by George Fitzmaurice. It was adapted from George du Maurier's 1891 novel Peter Ibbetson, which was made into a play of the same name by John N. Raphael.
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Back to God's Country may refer to:
The Shepherd of the Southern Cross is a 1914 Australian silent film about an Englishwoman torn between two men. It was the first feature film produced by Australasian Films.
Anthony Thomas Trusky was an American professor, writer, editor, film historian, and book artist. He was known for promoting poetry of the American West, recovering the films of Nell Shipman, and rediscovering and promoting the work of Idaho outsider artist James Castle. Trusky was a Professor of English at Boise State University (1970–2009) and Director of the Hemingway Western Studies Center (1991–2009).
Back to God's Country is a 1927 American silent Northern adventure film based on James Oliver Curwood's story Wapi, the Walrus. The film was directed by Irvin Willat and stars Renée Adorée, who was usually an MGM actress. The film is a remake of the 1919 film Back to God's Country which starred Nell Shipman.
Baree, Son of Kazan is a 1918 American silent film based on the 1917 adventure novel of the same name by writer James Oliver Curwood. The film was directed by David Smith, the brother of Albert E. Smith, one of the founders of Vitagraph studio. Nell Shipman, an influential female actress and producer, stars in the film. In 1925, David Smith produced a new film based on this novel, starring Anita Stewart.
The 9th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 6 and September 15, 1984. The festival introduced Perspective Canada programme, devoted to Canadian films. The festival screened 225 feature films and more than half of them were Canadian films.
Baree, Son of Kazan is a 1925 American silent drama film produced by the Vitagraph Company of America and distributed by Warner Bros., which acquired Vitagraph. It was based on a 1917 novel by James Oliver Curwood. The film starred Anita Stewart and is a remake of a 1918 version starring Nell Shipman.
The Fires of Conscience is a lost 1916 American silent drama film directed by Oscar Apfel and starring William Farnum. It was produced and released by the Fox Film Corporation.
Ernest G. Shipman was Canada's most successful film producer during the silent period. Shipman, whose nickname was "Ten Percent Ernie," made seven features from 1919 to 1923.
Ola Humphrey was an American actress on stage and in silent films.
Kay Armatage is a Canadian filmmaker, former programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival and Professor emerita at the University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute and Women & Gender Studies Institute. Though she attained a B.A. in English Literature from Queen's University, her name is generally linked with the University of Toronto.