Summary
A bruised moon hangs above a clapboard shack somewhere south of the Yukon, its silver chipped by the howl of a man who wields matrimony like a blackjack. Rose Donnay—skin translucent with old bruises, eyes still feral with hope—slips from her husband Tim’s grip as though shedding a scar, her flight a blur of calico and terror. Beside her lopes Jack Hilton, gambler, liar, poet of his own appetites, pockets jangling with coins he lifted from the man he has just left bleeding in the sawdust. Together they chase the midnight sun to Nome, a boomtown stitched from canvas, lust, and frost, where Hilton erects a dance-hall cathedral of gin-slick trombones and sour champagne. Beneath its tin chandeliers Rose becomes the reluctant Madonna of the Far North, her body a currency, her gaze a lament. When she uncovers Hilton trysting with a chorus girl amid crates of illegal whiskey, the marriage of convenience combusts; she flees into the arms of Anatole Norss, a taciturn violin-maker whose hands smell of resin and cedar. Yet blood demands interest: Mountie Bill Carnon, scarlet coat against the snow, follows the breadcrumb trail of Tim’s missing corpse straight to Rose’s door. Hilton, cornered, drags Rose and the orphaned child she has rescued into a sled chase as pitiless as a psalm. Across the white amphitheater of the tundra, Anatole and his one-eyed dog Patches pursue, until gunfire cracks the Arctic hush and Hilton’s silhouette folds into the drifts, leaving Rose finally the author of her own frozen dawn.
Synopsis
Rose Donnay flees from a life of abuse from her drunken, brutal husband Tim. Accompanying her is Jack Hilton, who--unknown to Rose--shoots Tim after stealing his money. They venture to Nome where Hilton opens a dance hall in which Rose functions as the main attraction. Soon Rose discovers Hilton's infidelity and leaves him. Meanwhile, Anatole Norss falls in love with the disillusioned Rose. When Bill Carnon, a member of the Canadian mounted police, appears on the trail of Donnay's killer, terror-stricken Hilton rushes to Rose's cabin, shoots the Mountie, and forces Rose to accompany him by kidnapping the child whom she had adopted. Anatole follows with his faithful sled-dog Patches, overtakes Hilton, and kills him, thus freeing Rose to marry her rescuer.
Review Excerpt
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The first time I encountered Rose of Nome it was a ghost: a single 35mm nitrate reel smoldering in a Missouri barn, emulsion bubbling like black lava. Ninety-three years later, courtesy of a 4K photochemical resurrection by the Library of Congress, Barbara La Marr’s lurid fever dream flickers anew—proof that the most savage silents often hide beneath dime-novel clichés. What surfaces is not merely a woman-on-the-run potboiler but an ice-caked morality play that anticipates Spring Fever’s cockt..."
