Restoring reputation as well as materials, performance and craft! This film has a measly 5.9 on IMDB with 20% giving just
1.0 which makes you wonder how many have actually seen it or, in fairness, at least in its
current form as restored by Joe Harvat, who used a Kickstarter to fund the
project in 2025. The sole user review there says it is “dated” which is an unhistorical term with no utility… how can anything be created and immunised against the opinions and
shifted tastes of the generations to come, especially over a century later. It
is of its time, but then, aren’t we all. The film was considered lost until the
Russian archive handed over a copy to the Library of Congress in 2010… but it is not only found but "reborn" for a new generation to properly evaluate.
And, what The Eternal Struggle is, is a fun ride with some superb performances,
action scenes and with outstanding location work in what looks like somewhere
near Nell Shipman’s God’s
Country on the borders of the US and Canada. The Silent Film Stills Archive has a snippet in which the director, Reginald “Realism” Barker explains
that almost all of the outdoor scenes were shot “in the glacial fields of
Alberta”. Almost certainly, Nell was an influence on the film’s rugged approach but there was also a trend in films based on the Canadian Mounted Police as well as the location with the adaptation of Jack London's The Call of the Wild released
only a couple of weeks before.
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| Reginald Barker directingPat O'Malley and Renée Adorée (SFSA) |
This story was based on New Zealander Edith Joan
Lyttleton’s 1913 novel The Law-Bringers, the film places the performers
not just in the context of the time but also in the chilling rivers and frozen
mountains close to the actual locations. The most spectacular backdrops were around
Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta with the production crew travelling to the Canadian
Rockies. Other scenes used the reliably more accessible and far warmer, Big
Bear Lake, California.
At this point, Renée Adorée’s acting also owes much to
Mary Pickford with high energy bounce and a fighting spirit. But, whilst this
was one of her first leading roles in Hollywood, possibly her breakthrough, she
already had her own skill-set honed in Europe* and when her eyes flow with
tears and her face is set she can be both frighteningly febrile and sweetly sympathetic.
Her most famous role was probably in The Big Parade (1925) as the French
girl who steels John Gilbert’s American heart in war-torn France, the woman who
like the war, never leaves him. With her huge brown eyes, slight overbite and
liberated movement, she was atypical for a Hollywood leading lady of the time
and in a less obvious way brought a European sexuality to the screen as with
the Polish Pola. This is a significant film for presenting her breakthrough in
a starring role.
Renée Adorée AKA Emilia Louisa Victoria Reeves
“Renée Adorée, who was often given French-Canadian roles, was at her most ebullient in The Eternal Struggle, leaping up and down in the middle of the street and egging on two fellow French-Canadians to fight over her with knives…”
Hollywood's Canada : the Americanization of our
national image by Berton, Pierre, 1975, McClelland and Stewart
As Berton goes on to say, this film was very much part of
the genre of a “Mountie Film” which normally featured the North-Western Mounted
Police in a “love versus duty” quandary, usually pursuit of a sister, a brother
or a romantic interest (and has done the maths analysing some thirty films that
fit the brief) who they have to decide to capture or let go… and the Mounties
always get their man (or woman).
The film starts with one such moment as Bucky O'Hara (Pat
O'Malley) – possibly the sole Irish immigrant in North America who didn’t join
the NYC Police Department – is on the trail of one Oily Kirby (Pat Harmon). He
finds a cabin in the woods which is inhabited by the very fine looking Camille
Lenoir (Barbara La Marr aka "The Girl Who is Too Beautiful" and Hedwig
Eva Maria Kiesler’s namesake when she came to Hollywood in 1938). Bucky takes a
shine to Camille and decides to stick around – which doesn’t sound to me like
the typical MO of the NWMP but whether be luck or design, he spots Oily hiding
in a basket and proceeds to arrest him. Camille pulls a gun and Oily almost
escapes following a short chase… Bucky got his man.
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| Pat O'Malley and Barbara La Marr |
Back in the town of Grey Wolf we meet the locals
including the vibrant Andrée Grange (Renée Adorée) who is dancing for the
locals, two of whom almost come to blows over her after offering her presents.
She is the “idol” of every man in Grey Wolf although there are perhaps
different words that could be used to describe their regard. Take the
distinctly dodgy Barode Dukane (Wallace Beery) who has a name as well as a face
that only a mother could love and yet who seems to think he can buy anything,
even love, telling Andrée that he has presents for her.
Meanwhile Bucky arrives with Oily in tow and delivers him
to Sgt. Neil Tempest (Earle Williams) at the Mounties’ headquarters. Bucky goes
to the bar, run by Andrée’s father Pierre Grange (Josef Swickard), and in the
drinking and dancing melee meets the young woman and gets a slap for being just
too forward. Now, you know and I know that this is cinema code, even in 1923,
for the start of true love but there’s a big fly in that ointment: Sgt Tempest
has already proposed.
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| Pat O'Malley, Renée Adorée and Earle Williams make a crowd. |
One thing leads to another thing and then another… the
two men realise their mutual interest and both do the decent thing as Bucky
pretends to only be “joking” about his affection for Andrée. Broken hearted she
goes to see Barode Dukane who has been so generous with his presents and who we
now know has some kind of criminal connection to Camille… One thing leads to
another and a title card reveals that he sees his chance to “comfort” the
distraught girl who we next see running into her father’s bas saying that she
killed Ducane!
“She is not mine and she is not yours… She belongs to
the Crown and she’s going back!”
Her father and her “loyal best friend” Wo Long (George
Kuwa, Japanese and American actor) help her to escape and she heads to Herschel
Island – in the Yukon and far, far North-West of the actual locations - to
board a ship and away to the mercies of the sea but O’Hara follows and after an
altercation with two sailors, Capt. Jack Scott (Anders Randolf) and his first mate
(Fred Kohler who plays second mate in The Hell Ship (1927)), does his
duty and arrests his sweetheart. With love overpowering his sense of duty, Sgt
Tempest also follows and tries to help her free, initiating the film’s most
thrilling sequence as the two canoe down a stretch referred to as the Devil’s
Cauldron “a six-mile gash through solid granite” ending with a waterfall that
would leave them dashed on the rocks below, unless… someone can get to them in
time.
Renée and Wally
And still, the question remains – did Andrée kill Dukane and what actually happened on that dark and stormy night?
After Gosfilmofond gifted a digital copy of the film to
the U. S. Library of Congress along with a number of other films, in 2010, Joe
Harvat was able to secure a 2k scan and then spent seven-months, digitally
cleaning the film. The opening and closing credits were missing and all of the
title cards had to be translated/rewritten as English. Apart from some deterioration
at the beginning the film looks so crisp and detailed – a pleasure to screengrab!
Joe also commissioned David Drazin to provide a fresh piano
accompaniment for the film which enhances the viewing experience with an energy
and style of the period.
What the papers said:
The New York Times reviewer, Mordaunt Hall, was a
tough man to impress but he saw the film as a "vigorous and
interesting" melodrama in his write up of 10th
September 1923. He considered it as a superior example of the
"Mountie" genre, praising Del Marr for her presence and Adorée for
her "extraordinary charm" and ability to convey the character's
terror and innocence – exactly as I said above! He was also impressed by the film’s “ruggedness” and I should think so given
the effort involved in filming in Alberta…
The Variety review of 23rd September
called the film "one of the best of the snow pictures" and expected it
to be a “solid money-maker” as a superior Mountie film. They focused on the box
office draw of Barbara La Marr but were also very impressed with Adorée’s
"vivid personality" and "emotional depth” as she carried the
weight of the film’s dramatic tensions. There was praise too for the location shoots which captured the beautiful isolation and with Barker's ability to make the cold feel "visceral" and "authentic"
to the audience.
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| Rugged |
Photoplay Magazine (November 1923) described the
film as a "thrilling and picturesque" drama, with the "Northwest"
setting feel like a character itself, thanks to the "magnificent snow
photography". There was also praise for the chemistry between Renée Adorée
and Pat O'Malley – and, for me, the latter looks much more convincing once he’s
in the great white outdoors with stubble softening his made-up features!
Ultimately The Eternal Struggle makes the most of
its story and provides a fine example of staple fair at this stage of silent
cinema. It’s a very worthwhile project from Joe Harvat and I applaud his
efforts to make the film available again – a Kickstarter page to follow with interest!.
* Adorée presented as French in Hollywood but was in fact
born Emilia Louisa Victoria Reeves on September 30, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany
the daughter of a London-born circus performer, James Reeves, and a Belgian
mother, Victorine Schreiber. The theory is that it was more interesting to be French
at the time when there were many famous Brits in town but she actually adopted her new identity in Australia - see link below. In Europe, she had come up through
the circus and then theatre but her first film was made in Australia:
£500 Reward (1918).
She’s billed as Rene Adorée on a poster for the film and
as a member of The Magleys, a duo she had formed with the American dancer Guy Magley.
The Melbourne Punch described them as among most graceful dancers to
ever visit Australia and this poise, along with her circus abilities – acrobat and
horse riding – stood her in good stead with the action and dancing in The
Eternal Struggle and many more!
Cor blimey, n’est pas!!
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| Guy Magley and Renée Adoree performing in Samples in Australia in 1918. |
