Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1924


Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924 film)

Buy Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924 film) now from Amazon

First, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.

Wikipedia article




'Wanderer of the Wasteland' is a 1924 American silent Western film directed by Irvin Willat and starring Jack Holt, Noah Beery, and Billie Dove. It was the third feature film to be photographed entirely in Technicolor.

Plot



The film is based on Zane Grey's 1923 novel of two brothers, one an honest cowpoke, the other a gambler. When Adam Larey (Jack Holt) confronts his younger brother Guerd (James Mason) about his gambling addiction, the latter is accidentally shot. A distraught Adam, believing he has killed his own brother, flees into the desert. He later learns that Guerd was merely wounded and returns to the loving arms of beautiful Ruth Virey (Billie Dove).

Cast



* Jack Holt as Adam Larey

* Noah Beery as Dismukes

* George Irving as Mr. Roderick Virey

* Kathlyn Williams as Magdalene Virey

* Billie Dove as Ruth Virey

* Jim Mason as Guerd Larey (credited as James Mason)

* Richard Neill as Collishaw (credited as Richard R. Neill)

* James Gordon as Alex MacKay

* William A. Carroll as Merryvale (credited as William Carroll)

* Willard Cooley as Camp Doctor

Production



Paramount Pictures decided to make a picture entirely in Technicolor (an early version known as Process 2) following the success of the Technicolor sequences in the film 'The Ten Commandments' (1923) and director Irvin Willat's own 'Heritage of the Desert' (1924).'Los Angeles Times', January 23, 1924. Production began on January 24, 1924, and wrapped on March 9. Location shooting for the film included setting up "tent cities" in remote parts of Arizona, Nevada and California, and the production crew worked without being able to watch dailies.Layton, James and David Pierce. 'The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915-1935'. George Eastman House, 2015, p. 104.

Preservation status



The film is now considered to be a lost film. An original cemented Technicolor print survived into the 1960s in the hands of the film's director, Irvin Willat, who reported in 1971 that the 35 mm nitrate film had decomposed.

After Willat's death, his daughter mentioned that she remembered the day when he discovered that 'Wanderer of the Wasteland' had decomposed. She said he went upstairs to his bedroom, closed the door and cried for three hours. His former wife Billie Dove starred in the picture, and he had never really come to terms with their separation. Dove was lured away from Willat by Howard Hughes.

References




Buy Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924 film) now from Amazon

<-- Return to movies from 1924



This work is released under CC-BY-SA. Some or all of this content attributed to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1105868916.