The Trail of the Arrow

Réalisé par Nell Shipman

États-Unis, 1920 (fiction, 32 minutes, noir et blanc)

Image : San Francisco Chronicle, 24 avril 1921

Description du film [en anglais] :
« Although the film is no longer extant, there is some evidence of its approach. Trail of the Arrow weaves its story around a man by the name of Bob Battle who develops an aversion to women drivers when a woman motorist damages his fender. As a result of the accident, he challenges Shipman and her friend Marjorie Cole to a race. He makes a $1000 bet that the two women could not drive the Essex over a dangerous route in the Mojave Desert [...]. They immediately take him up on the wager. »
-- Kay Armatage (source)

Générique (partiel) :
Scénario :	Nell Shipman
Interprètes principaux :	Nell Shipman, Marjorie Cole
Images :	Joseph B. Walker

(sources)

Notes sur The Trail of the Arrow

Film muet.

Notes disponibles seulement en anglais :

Trail of the Arrow was financed by an automobile company as a promotional project.

(sources)

Citations de la réalisatrice [en anglais]

« I have proven that woman is on a par with man in driving a motor car, as she is in every other walk of life. All she needs is the experience—the physical training—the freedom from restraint. »
-- Nell Shipman (source)

« We grabbed the Maxwell bankroll [Something New ] because we were 'between pictures.' Back to God's Country was in release and doing fine, but my whack was a delayed take while everyone else connected with the picture was getting theirs. I had annoyed Mr. [James Oliver] Curwood and part of the management so I got it last. To make the room rent and keep eating we'd already gone out on the Mojave in the deep of a 120° summer and shot up an Essex called the 'Grey Ghost' for its having made a sort of blind flying run from East to West. The only highlight I remember on this one [Trail of the Arrow] was driving through a brush fire and finding out later that the gas tank cap was missing. [...] »
-- Nell Shipman (source)

Citations sur The Trail of the Arrow [en anglais]

« Seizing the challenge of competition, speed, dynamism, and aggression, Shipman constructs a narrative [in Trail of the Arrow] that emphasizes female friendship, equality between men and women, and a geographical, political, and personal freedom for women. She is not fleeing from patriarchy, but accepting its challenge and defeating it. Equally at home on the streets of Los Angeles or the roadless tracts of the wilderness, she embodies and embraces technological and spiritual modernity and declares it a new world for women. »
-- Kay Armatage (source)

« If there are any male drivers in San Francisco, who are obsessed with the idea that women cannot 'keep their heads' when at the wheel of a motor car they will be disillusioned by watching the feat of two Los Angeles girls, Marjorie Cole Dougan and Nell Shipman, in driving an Essex car called the 'SX Arrow,' into the Devil's Punch Bowl [...]. Over sand dunes and sagebrush, across arroyos, over boulders and hummocks, up and down precipitous inclines, slipping and sliding, backing and plunging, once with their rear wheels overhanging a 400-foot precipice the two brave girls attained their objective without serious mishap [...]. »
-- San Francisco Chronicle (source)

« The car was tilted at such angles that the daring girl drivers had to be lashed to the seats to prevent from being thrown from the car. The film [Trail of the Arrow] is 2,000 feet in length and requires thirty-two minutes to run off. While it is, of course, exhibited to exploit the Essex car, not one word of advertising appears throughout the picture [...]. The Trail of the Arrow will be exhibited by the Harrison Company all of this week, after which it will be shown in all the principal cities and towns of Northern California and Nevada. »
-- San Francisco Examiner (source)

Bibliographie sur The Trail of the Arrow

Brèves parties de livres

ARMATAGE, Kay. The Girl from God's Country: Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003. [en anglais] (pp. 122-126)
FÖRSTER, Annette. « Nell Shipman and the American Silent Cinema » , dans Women in the Silent Cinema: Histories of Fame and Fate, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2017. [en anglais] (pp. 376-386)

Articles de journaux, de revues grand public ou de sites d'information en ligne

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE. « SX screenplay shows women as motorists: Arnold shows Essex movies; Call of open road will be aided by distributer's interesting picture », San Francisco Chronicle, 24 avril 1921. [en anglais]
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER. « Daring girls risk lives in auto films », San Francisco Examiner, 26 février 1920. [en anglais]