Though engaged to Pierre, a member of the Royal Mounted Police, Mabella, a girl living at a Canadian fur-trading post, is forced to marry Gaspard, a vicious half-breed who has incriminating evidence about her father, Lopente. Pierre is distressed; Mabella, brutally mistreated and neglected by Gaspard, goes to the police station for protection.


The 35 mm nitrate, now vaulted in Paris, opens on a hand-tinted cerise sunrise that looks almost apocalyptic against the monochrome pines—a visual oath that Irving Cummings intends to stain his morality play with hell-fire hues rather than trite polar whites. What follows is not the square-jawed Mountie pulp you expect...


Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Irving Cummings

Edward LeSaint
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"The 35 mm nitrate, now vaulted in Paris, opens on a hand-tinted cerise sunrise that looks almost apocalyptic against the monochrome pines—a visual oath that Irving Cummings intends to stain his morality play with hell-fire hues rather than trite polar whites. What follows is not the square-jawed Mountie pulp you expect from James Oliver Curwood’s brand, but a frostbitten gothic where every sled-dog breath hangs like ectoplasm and the title card—lettered in jagged icicle font—warns of a river tha..."

Rin Tin Tin
Irving Cummings, Ruth Cummings, James Oliver Curwood
United States


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