Mary Pickford plays a Scottish lass who inherits the title of chieftain after her father’s tragic death. Romance is in the air but it is all imperiled when her lover’s secret is revealed…
Home Media Availability: Released on DVD by Grapevine.
Silhouettes
Mary Pickford’s career can be divided into two distinct sections: before and after The Poor Little Rich Girl, her first onscreen child role. Previously, she had switched between playing adults and teens and was in the middle of a wrongheaded attempt to cast her as every nationality under the sun. She had already played Italian, Indian, Japanese, Dutch, French and Indigenous Alaskan characters, Scotland was the next destination. The Pride of the Clan was released two months before The Poor Little Rich Girl (both films directed by Maurice Tourneur) and she personally considered it to be a failure.
New Jersey and Massachusetts stand in for Scotland (New Jersey was also used in the 1917 Scottish-set Kidnapped) in the lusciously filmed picture. Pickford plays Marget MacTavish, the daughter of the local chieftain. The film opens with her father dying in a shipwreck and she inherits his position as his only child. Life is good, she is respected and her shy boyfriend, Jamie Campbell (Matt Moore, brother of her then-husband Owen), has just proposed.
This can’t last, of course, and, unknown to anyone, Jamie’s mother has written a fateful letter. She is not really his mother. She was his nurse, who stole him from his aristocratic mother because she could not bear to give him back. She claimed that he drowned but her conscience now compels her to write to the Countess of Dunstable (Kathryn Browne-Decker) to tell her that her son is alive.
The Countess arrives in her fashionable clothes and her sudden interest in Jamie makes Marget jealous. Jamie is thrilled to meet his real mother and, after a period of secrecy, the Countess and her new husband, the Earl (Warren Cook), meet Marget. She simply will not do. A rural Scottish girl married to their son? The Early privately convinces Marget that she cannot make Jamie happy and that the only thing to do is to give him up.
Will true love in out? Or will the snobs stop the path to true love? See The Pride of the Clan to find out!
You may have noticed that not a lot happens in the synopsis and wonder whether I left a lot of things out. I did not. The plot really is that thin. (Okay, I did leave out a bizarre fantasy sequence involving cannibals but you missed nothing.) I don’t have any issue with the performers, everyone does their best, and the picture is lovely to look at and takes full advantage of its setting, with a shipwreck so realistic, Mary Pickford nearly drowned when the floating set sank unexpectedly. I am not a fan of the dialect title cards– and oh brother do they dialect here– but the actual workings of the film are fine.
I have a complicated relationship with Maurice Tourneur’s films. I saw a fair number early in my silent movie watching and found them beautiful but plodding. The Wishing Ring changed my mind, with its snappy pace and bright, cheery characters and I warmed to Tourneur. Well, The Pride of the Clan has all of the tendencies that I find annoying in is work. The leaden pace and, even worse, the lack of interest in a strong story with strong character motivations.
The “are you having an affair with this mysterious older woman?” is a prime example of what I mean. A stranger in this remote village will immediately pique everyone’s interest, her immediate insistence on embracing and kissing Jamie would make anyone suspicious. It almost seems like we have a plot at last but no, Jamie tells Marget to trust him, she does and then it is all explained. So why bring in the plot thread at all if it’s just going to fizzle?
The film opens dramatically with the death of Marget’s father, who is never given any screentime and whose demise is portrayed by a long shot in a boat. Mary Pickford movies were generally expert in plumbing every emotional situation for maximum impact, so this is an unusual error in her filmography. A scene or two of their loving relationship would have deepened the impact. This might have been forgiven, though, if it weren’t for the out-of-the-blue confession of Jamie’s adopted mother that she kidnapped him years before. There’s no buildup to this revelation and it’s initially shared with the audience via letter.
The adopted child choosing between the parent who raised them and the family reclaiming them is a rich emotional vein, one that Captain January mined for the better part of its feature length and it didn’t even have the additional angle of kidnapping. In The Pride of the Clan, Jamie is just delighted by his new rich mother and the woman who raised him is completely ignored, no sorrow or anger, she simply performed her plot duty and dissolves into the ether.
The Pride of the Clan was already two reels of plot in a seven reel sack but ignoring the potential moments of emotional connection is just unforgivable. Pickford was absolutely correct about this picture, it simply did not work and the fault rests on the screenplay and therefore Tourneur’s “do everything” approach to directing. One less tasteful silhouette shot and more scenario revisions, Maurice. I am curious about the original play by Eleanor Gates, adapted by Elaine S. Carrington and Charles E. Whittaker. I imagine a shipwreck would have been astonishing on the stage and multiple Scottish folk music scenes would likely have covered a multitude of sins.
About that shipwreck, I keep hinting at… It’s a shame because the climax of the picture is very well-done. Marget breaks up with Jamie and then unties her houseboat in a fit of emotion and a desire to leave everything behind. It’s not seaworthy and she is trapped below decks. Jamie saves her with his new motorboat (along with a kitten that had stowed away). His new parents are, perhaps, a little fast to change their tune about the union but the peril and rescue sequences have the kind of emotional punch we expect from a Pickford picture.
So, The Pride of the Clan is very much your mileage may vary. Movie fans who feel that the beauty of a Tourneur picture outweighs any other flaws will be pleased as this is indeed a lovely film to look at. However, I found it ultimately unsatisfying and barren of real emotion, with a few exceptions.
Where can I see it?
☙❦❧
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