Kingston Canadian Film Festival presents
ON A GRAND SCALE:
NELL SHIPMAN
Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 2:30pm
Tickets:
Admit one - $25; Seniors - $20; Students - $15 (all plus handling fee)
Location:
Grand Theatre, Regina Rosen Auditorium
Reception and exhibit followed by screening with live musical accompaniment by Dr. Philip Carli
Back to Gods country was released in 1919 and tells the story of Dolores LeBeau, a woman with an intrinsic connection to nature and animals who lives with her father deep in the Canadian wilderness. In a savage attack, Dolores father is murdered. Distraught, she eventually marries and travels with her husband on a whaler schooner only to come face to-face with her fathers killer.
Back to Gods country was the product of a two-year exclusive contract between Nell Shipman and James Oliver Curwood, a popular actor who often set his stories in the Canadian wilderness. The Shipman-Curwood production company was formed and Shipmans husbandand business manager, Ernest Shipman, acting as a producer was responsible for securing funding for the film and for marketing it.
Intelligently marketed both in Canada and the United States, the film was one of the most successful Canadian films of the silent period, posting a 300% profit. The film was promoted as distinctively Canadian; a full-page advertisement in Canadian Moving Picture Digest declared, Your audience has been waiting for THIS ITS CANADIAN THROUGH AND THROUGH..a Canadian star in a Canadian story by a Canadian author and produced by a Canadian company under Canadian management. A nude bathing scene featuring Shipman was also heavily promoted with ads asking is nude rude?
Director: David Hartford
Screenplay: Nell Shipman and James Oliver Curwood, adapted from the short story Wapi The Walrus by James Oliver Curwood
Producer: Ernest Shipman and James Oliver Curwood
Principal Cast: Nell Shipman, Wheeler Oakman, Wellington A. Playter, Charles Arling
Language: Silent with English intertitles
Runtime: 73 minutes
Original Release: 1919