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| Directed by Nell Shipman and Bert Van Tuyle |
| United States, 1923 (fiction, 117 minutes, black and white) |
| Also known as "The Golden Yukon", "The Grub-Stake: A Tale of the Klondike", "The Romance of Lost Valley" |
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| Image: The Arizona Republican (Phoenix), April 29, 1923 |
| Video (Internet Archive) |
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Film Description: "Faith Diggs, who is caring for her invalid father Skipper, meets Mark Leroy, an Alaskan gambler, and he entices her to the Klondike through a fake marriage. She learns the truth about her marriage from Dawson Kate, a dancehall woman, and with her father she flees into the wilderness and becomes stranded without food. Faith encounters wild animals and cares for her now delirious father until Kate's son rescues them. A romance develops between them, and when they find a mine, Mark tries to jump the claim but is repulsed and killed by a fall." -- American Film Institute (source)
Film Description: |
| Film Credits (partial): | |
| Written by: | Nell Shipman |
| Produced by: | Nell Shipman |
| Principal Cast: | Nell Shipman, Hugh Thompson, Alfred Allen, George Berrell, Walt Whitman, C.K. Van Auker, Ah Wing, Lillian Leighton, Marjorie Warfield, Lloyd Peters, Brownie the bear |
| Cinematography: | Joseph B. Walker, Robert S. Newhard |
| Film Editing: | Nell Shipman |
| Production Company: | Nell Shipman Productions |
"The Grub-Stake was showing up good in the first, second and third rough cuts so I was fairly cocky. The subtitle cards were made and inserted and their little black spaces made welcome signboards on the road of the action. The Lab was performing miracles with color, using sepia with a silverish tone to overlay a warm pink tint. The snow looked violet in the shadows and conifer trunks blushed rose under a silver sheen. To sit in the dark, hot projection room and see the picture run, watch the story unfold, made up for my hours at the rewinds bent over a small square of illumined glass and matching lip movement, eye direction, exits, entrances, close-ups to long shots."
-- Nell Shipman
(source)
"Although [Nell] Shipman had done nearly everything else in the film industry, she had never [prior to The Grub-Stake] negotiated a deal for international distribution of a feature film. Distribution of the other films had been handled by the studio (Vitagraph for the early films, First National for Back to God's Country) or by partnering producers such as William Clune, who had taken over the release of The Girl from God's Country. Now Shipman, burdened by fears for her future livelihood and by the normal trepidations of the director waiting for her creative work to be judged, had to negotiate with a hard-nosed, knowledgeable film businessman. Warmly praising her 'new baby,' promising to spend money on advertising and prints, place the film in prestigious venues, and ensure 'stellar billing' for Shipman, Fred Warren snowed her big time. [...] Ruefully admitting that she had been 'green as grass,' Shipman told the sad tale of the aftermath."
-- Kay Armatage
(source)
"When the moment arrives [in The Grub-Stake] when Faith finds love in the wilderness, it is with a young man of her own age who seems to have skills that equal hers. Unlike the husbands of Back to God's Country and Something New (and, tellingly, [Nell Shipman's] partner Bert Van Tuyle), who are injured or fall ill in the moments of greatest tension, Jeb manages just fine. He finds Faith in the wilderness and reunites her with her father, proving himself to be an appropriate mate in the egalitarian partnership of modern marriage. As a landscape painter, he shares Faith's sensitivity to the beauties of nature. Their suitability for each other is depicted also in parallel intercut scenes of fights: as Jeb holds off the villain's gang outside, Faith struggles tooth and nail with Leroy inside the cabin."
-- Kay Armatage
(source)
"Despite [the] action-driven narrative and episodic structure [of The Grub-Stake], and its three plotlines, the plot's construction is solid and clear. We are shown, in order, a poor girl seeking to improve her situation; an older rich man tricking her into marriage but only so as to exploit her as a dance hall hostess; the girl escaping with a dog-sled but getting lost in the wilderness; the girl first afraid but then cared for and accommodated by the wilderness' inhabitants; the girl being retrieved by her soon-to-be lover but finding herself in the vexed position of being married to a man she does not love; the girl facing an arrest warrant for dog theft although what she had taken from her counterfeit husband was only what he was unwilling to give despite having promised it to her; and, finally, the girl managing to get rid of her husband and liberating herself for the true love of her life. Already from this scanty synopsis, it may be clear that the story hinges on 'things' and 'people' not being what they initially seem or pretend to be."
-- Annette Förster
(source)
"Opening somewhat unpromisingly on the conventional note of the innocent young girl being carried off and placed in an Alaskan dancing hall, [The Romance of Lost Valley] develops later into a series of very beautiful scenic and wild animal shots held together by a sufficient thread of story to keep the interest. It works up to a strong climax of the Western type, full of fights and thrills, and on the whole will be found a very useful item for most programs."
-- Kinematograph Weekly
(source)
"Few pictures are destined to make a wider appeal than The Grub-Stake, in which Nell Shipman stars at the Rose Theater, starting Monday. This remarkable girl, noted for her pictures of the great outdoors, not only plays the leading role in the new picture, but wrote the story and, with Bert Van Tuyle, directed it. It is truly a Nell Shipman production. [...] In Nell Shipman's picture it is a girl who makes the appeal to a man—a girl struggling against adverse circumstances in Seattle, who wishes to go to Alaska in order to make a fresh start. Without realizing in the simplicity of her heart, the nature of the man she is dealing with, she obtains her grub-stake and pays for it a price more bitter than she thought possible. It is from this incident that the story progresses through surprise, heartbreak, courage, thrilling adventures and unbelievable hardship to a conclusion as sweet as the air of the forests the heroine has learned to love."
-- The Leader (Regina)
(source)
"The Yukon Film Society has transformed The Grub-Stake into The Grub-Stake Revisited by editing its running time, setting it to a new score, and adding narration comprised of passages from Shakespeare. I was fortunate enough to see the picture with a live orchestra and actors in the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa. [...] While the setting was right, the substitution of Shakespeare for the original title cards gives the proceeding an ironic air not at all intended by the original film-makers. A modern audience cannot help but feel distanced from a century-old film using dialogue from unrelated plays written 400 years ago. Inviting a twenty-first-century audience to laugh at characters and situations, rather than trying to understand them on their own terms, makes it even harder to get that audience to see past the silent film style of acting. It also feels as if this is breaking faith with Nell Shipman. She put everything she had professionally, emotionally, and financially into making The Grub-Stake as an earnest picture in which we are meant to feel the heroine's fear and to rejoice in her triumph."
-- Robin MacKay
(source)
"Lost in the wilds of the Northwest, where the snow was anywhere from four to six feet deep on the level, Miss Nell Shipman and her company spent several weeks. [...] The results are that Miss Shipman's forthcoming picture, The Grub Stake, promises to have some real thrillers in the way of snow scenes. The cameraman, J.B. Walker, and myself, got a wonderful kick out of it, too. For several weeks running we never moved outside our cabins, without snowshoes. We got to be expert in the art of manipulating them, and in setting cameras on mountainsides and on top of six feet of snow."
-- Robert S. Newhard
(source)
"The star [Nell Shipman] always has been known as an out of doors girl. She has nearly always worked in pictures where there are animals. She seems to have no fear of and considerable control over them. They apparently like and understand her. So her films have a touch of the unusual, no matter how trite the story she has may be. The present tale [The Grub-Stake] is just routine stuff that made the ten-twent'-thirt's what they were."
-- Mae Tinee
(source)
"The animals, all owned by Miss Shipman, are the only North American wild beasts trained to appear in motion pictures and include deer, elk, bear, cougar, wild cats, lynxes, wolves, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, weasels, chipmunks, mink, marmots, badgers and many other species. It is a remarkable collection when it is borne in mind that all the animals have appeared before the camera. Neither concealed wires nor leashes were used to restrain them when they 'acted' in The Grub-Stake. Kind words were the only persuasion."
-- Victoria Daily Times
(source)
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