Nomads of the North

If it weren't Lewis Stone week at Hot Toasty Rag, and if I didn't have my heart set on reviewing the oldest movie of his I could get my hands on, I would not have sat through Nomads of the North. Now I finally understand why people today don't like silent movies. It's nearly two hours, extremely boring, predictable, and very overacted.

Betty Blythe stars as the woman on the mountaintop that every man in the movie wants. She's also the only woman in the movie, so they don't appear to have much choice. Ranger Lewis Stone is in love with her and hikes miles out of his way just to call on her at home. The wealthy, and evil, log baron Francis McDonald is also in love with her, but Betty refuses his offer of marriage because she's waiting for her old boyfriend, Lon Chaney, to come back to her. Francis pays a stranger to tell Betty that he witnessed Lon's death, but Lon comes back to town just in time to object at their wedding ceremony. Betty and Lon are married, but when he accidentally kills a man, they go on the run in the wilderness.

Folks, you don't have to rent this movie. I watched it for you, so you can just pretend you've seen it. I've never seen a Lon Chaney movie, but it's clear I picked the wrong one to start with. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and not hold Nomads of the North against him during the next movie I see. He has a pet bear cub he cuddles and plays with as well as kisses, but that's not worth sitting through nearly two hours. This is one of those silent movies that give the others a bad reputation.

Adapted for the screen for his own production company from his 1919 novel of the same name by James Oliver Kurwood, it comes as little surprise that Kurwood's book was later filmed by Disney (much changed) as 'Nikki, Wild Dog of the North' in 1961.

Chaney completists, take heed, his role is billed third, although he actually has more screen time than top-billed Lewis S. Stone (as he is indentified in the credits); the real stars being Walter L. Griffin's superb outdoor photography, the cute team of a bear called Neewa and his four-legged friend Brimstone, and leading lady Betty Blythe; in roughly that order.

The rather one-note positivity of Chaney's role has been the subject of complaints; but this was still early days and he hadn't yet become as closely associated with macabre melodrama as he soon would. I found it refreshing to see him looking so dashing and handsome and getting the girl at the end. (Usually when you see Chaney looking this bright-eyed and bushy-tailed it's at the start of a flashback and something TERRIBLE promptly happens to him; it's nice to see him get a break for once.)

Lon Chaney stars as the handsome hero in this one (was The Penalty the film that started him down the path of playing villains and monsters?). A fur trapper who was stuck up in northern Canada for a year longer than he had planned, he returns home, some 300 miles south, to find his fiancée (Betty Blythe) about to marry the villainous son (Melbourne MacDowell) of the man who runs the town. Chaney gets into a fight and kills a man, but escapes with the girl. A while later, MacDowell finds the couple settled in the wilderness and enlists an honorable Mountie (Lewis Stone, who would go on to co-star in Grand Hotel) to bring Chaney to justice. It's a pretty standard melodrama from this period, but it's entertaining. The forest fire climax is quite well done. There's a lot of emphasis on Chaney's pets, a dog and a bear. Near the beginning, they get separated from their master (tethered together - you expect them to die horribly), and even have dialogue with each other. It almost turns into a silent Homeward Bound for a while!

...from director David Hartford. In a remote forest community named Fort O'God, the local company boss Duncan McDougall (Melbourne MacDowell) rules with an iron fist. His sleazeball son Bucky (Francis McDonald) has the hots for Nanette (Betty Blythe) who is apparently the only girl of marrying age in the area. She rebuffs Bucky's advances, though, just as she turns down a marriage proposal from nice-guy Mountie Mike O'Connor (Lewis Stone), because her heart belongs to long-missing trapper Raoul Challoner (Lon Chaney). When Bucky convinces Nanette that Raoul is dead, she agrees to marry him, but Raoul, along with his pet dog and pet bear, shows up in time to stop the wedding. This eventually leads to violence, and Raoul and Nanette head out into the vast Canadian wilderness to live as fugitives. O'Connor is assigned to track them down and arrest them.

Part of this plays as overwrought melodrama, other parts as outdoor nature comedy, with long passages of Chaney's pets cavorting in the woods. Some of the pets' shenanigans would give the modern day ASPCA palpitations, but no overt animal cruelty is shown. Chaney gets to play a normal, romantic leading man, which is odd, and also a bit boring. Stone is square-jawed, and already sports all-white hair. I'm sure the outdoor footage was a treat for viewers at the time.

This movie shouldn't be looked at for any redeeming social value or higher meaning. It's a rip-roaring melodrama that makes you cheer the good guys and boo the bad guys. Chaney overacts horribly (but deliciously) as Challoner and Stone is suitably stoic as the Mountie forced to track Chaney down. Macdonald is the man who tries to steal Blythe's virtue. It looks like they had a lot of fun making this one. They just don't make movies like this anymore: they either make the lampoon too obvious or take themselves too damned seriously.