Tess of the Storm Country

Director: John S. Robertson
USA. 1922.
120 minutes. Tinted.

Cast: Mary Pickford, Lloyd Hughes and Gloria Holt. A presentation of the Mary Pickford Institute, Timeline Films and Milestone Film & Video.

In 1914, Mary Pickford became a true motion-picture artist with her performance in Edwin S. Porter's Tess of the Storm Country. The Grace Miller White novel was a classic melodrama that allowed an actress to go all-out in her performance, and the talented Pickford rose to the occassion. So naturally, when she took control of her career by co-founding United Artists, a remake came to mind. She hired one of the finest directors of the day, the unjustly forgotten director John S. Robertson, and together they produced a masterpiece - one of the classics of her career.

Wealthy Elias Graves buys a house on a hill and tries to remove the squatters who live in the valley below. Dan Jordan urges him to use harsh measures on the squatters. When Jordan is murdered, Daddy Skinner is unjustly arrested and convicted. Skinner’s daughter, Tess, leads the squatters’ struggle for survival and wins the sympathy and love of Graves’ son, Frederick. But she loses him when Frederick discovers her with a child. When Ben Letts is revealed as Jordan’s murderer, Tess is reunited with her father. Frederick’s sister, Teola, claims the baby as her own, Tess and Frederick get back together, and Graves makes peace with the squatters.

Bonus Features

Full orchestral score by Jeffrey Mark Silverman.

Reviews

"Tess of the Storm Country, beautifully mounted and exquisitely photographed, is by any standards a work of art." - Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By

"The undisputed queen of the silver screen." - New York Post