Tess of the Storm Country (1914)
A squatter's daughter falls for the son of the landowner trying to evict her community, and when his sister's illegitimate baby is abandoned, Tess claims the child as her own and endures the town's scorn to protect it.
Tess of the Storm Country was Mary Pickford’s biggest hit to that point in her career and the role she later called its true beginning; she returned to the part in a 1922 remake. The 1914 original entered the National Film Registry in 2006.
Background
Tess of the Storm Country is a 1914 feature directed by Edwin S. Porter and starring Mary Pickford, one of her early features after she had become a major screen star. Pickford plays Tess, the daughter of a squatter family on the shore of a lake, who falls in love with the son of a wealthy landowner trying to drive her community off its land. The plot also turns on the landowner’s family and on Tess’s decision to claim an abandoned child as her own, which brings scorn from the town. The story was filmed again in 1922, with Pickford returning to the lead.
What to watch for
Pay attention to Pickford’s control of tone, which shifts from the rough humour of the squatter community to the more serious moral choices of the second half. Porter’s staging uses the lakeside location and the rough dwellings of the families to give the story a sense of place. The central dilemma is the child, and the film sets Tess’s refusal to give it up against the town’s judgment. Compare the film with Pickford’s later work to see how much of her screen persona was already in place by 1914. As a silent drama, it relies on intertitles to carry much of its dialogue.
