Tess of the Storm Country

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY is a big, busy story about religious hypocrisy in rural upstate New York wherein a Bible-thumping landowner in a hilltop mansion battles a community of hard- scrabble squatters who live below by the lakeside. Spunky Mary Pickford (30 years old at the time of filming, but playing a girl of 17) is the titular character, the daughter of a poor fisherman who is wrongly convicted of murdering a local official. The main villain, a repellent and lecherous squatter who tries to frame Pickford's father, is played by the normally sweet and gentle Jean Hersholt, who is virtually unrecognizable in his role. Kudos must go to Pickford not only as a performer who acts with her whole soul, but as a producer who supervised the construction of a realistic looking village of dilapidated waterfront shacks, and cast within it a gaggle of individuals who look like they came right out of the "hollers" of Appalachia. Although the sets are impressive, what goes on within them often cannot pass muster with 21st century viewers. A few of many examples: after Pickford tosses a cauldron of boiling liquid into Hersholt's face, he emerges intact and unblistered; a driving snowstorm outside Tess's shack covers a visitor's coat with flakes but leaves the boardwalk to the front door not only bare but bone dry; Tess takes a bath, including a voluptuously sudsy washing of her copious blonde locks, with nothing but a single bucket of water and in the middle of a wooden floor no less, and emerges clean as a whistle…. uh-huh. Charming scenes: Tess and her boyfriend so smitten with each other that neither one notices that the sleeve of his jacket has burned off after hanging next to the fireplace; bits of business involving a crow that makes a nuisance of itself around the house, providing comic relief between the waves of heavy-breathing melodrama. A showdown in a church, details of which would spoil the story, is still powerful. The most lasting impressions, however, come from Pickford's and Hersholt's stellar performances and the vividly constructed physical environment.