THIS WEEK IN HISTORY: 1919
The hype begins for the most successful Canadian film of the silent era
Back To God’s Country sounds like a name for a B.C. government travelogue produced during the W.A.C. Bennett era. But it’s actually the title of a feature film made in 1919 starring B.C.’s first movie star, Nell Shipman.
Born Helen Foster Barham in Victoria, Shipman was a pioneering actress, director, producer and screenwriter in the silent era. Her forte was outdoor films in the snow-covered north, which led to her nickname Queen of the Dogsleds.
Back To God’s Country was adapted from the short story Wapi, The Walrus, by James Oliver Curwood, a popular adventure writer. In the short story a dog was the main character, but for the silver screen the star became Dolores LeBeau, played by Shipman.
The hype for the movie began on Oct. 11, 1919, when the Vancouver World’s In the Photo-Play World section carried a risqué illustration of a naked Shipman being protected from a villain by a friendly bear.
Shipman did in fact appear nude in the movie, under a waterfall. But the flowing water hid her nether regions in the film, and her long hair covered the naughty bits in the newspaper illustration.
That kept the censors at bay, but the ad writer played up the lurid angle.
“He had seen Dolores come dripping from the stream and tip-toed forward to seize her,” the illustration read. “Suddenly from a chasm in the rocks a great bear arose, growling fiercely, and the girl snuggled behind it.”
Shipman was known for the animals in her movies — she kept over 100 on her properties in California and Idaho in the late 1910s and early 1920s. She even trained them.
Her furry friends saved her bacon in the “wonder film of Dolores, the swimming girl of the Canadian wilds, and ‘Wapi, the Killer,’ the great dog who fights the fight of his fighting life to save her from men of prey more heartless than the beasts of the forest.”
Curwood was apparently incensed that somebody had changed his plot, and bad weather on location at Lesser Slave Lake, Alta., led to the death of one of the crew. But the movie was a big hit, bringing in $1.5 million, the highest gross for any Canadian movie of the silent era.
Shipman’s career in showbiz began after her family moved to Seattle when she was a child. She started acting in travelling shows when she was only 13, and when she was 20 moved to Pasadena, Calif., with her first husband, a veteran vaudeville promoter named Ernest Shipman (his nickname was 10 per cent Ernie, because he always took a cut).
Hollywood was in its infancy, and her husband became an agent. Nell gave birth to a son, published a novel and wrote movie scenarios. In 1916, she returned to acting in God’s Country and the Woman, a Vitagraph movie of a Curwood book. It was a hit, and Nell became a star.
Budding movie mogul Sam Goldwyn offered her a seven-picture deal, but Nell wanted to remain independent. After making a few more studio movies, the Shipmans convinced some Calgary businessmen to finance Back To God’s Country.
After its success, Nell formed her own production company, directing and starring in several shorts and the 1923 feature The Grub-Stake.
Unfortunately, the distributor for The Grub-Stake went bankrupt, and the film was never widely shown. Nell Shipman Productions went out of business, and Shipman’s movie stardom was over at age 32. She didn’t give up, however. An extensive Shipman bio on the Silent Hall of Fame website relates how she continued to write screenplays and books for decades after her star faded, constantly moving around the U.S. with her three husbands (she divorced Ernest Shipman in 1920). Nell Shipman died in Cabazon, Calif. in 1970, at the age of 77. Her story is the subject of a new documentary, Girl From God’s Country, narrated by Geena Davis. Director Karen Day shot it with an all-female crew, a conscious nod to the trail-blazing female film pioneer.
Like many silent films, Back to God’s Country was thought to be a “lost” movie. But a version was recently found in Europe, restored and put up on online at: youtube.com/watch?v=9B9_GRCJO9c