The Risky Road (1918) [NR]
Featuring:
Dorothy Phillips, William Stowell, Juanita Hansen
Written by:
Ida May Park
Katherine Leiser Robbins
Directed by:
Ida May Park
Release Date:
April 8, 1918
Original Title:
The Risky Road
Genres:
Drama
Production Companies:
Bluebird Photoplays
Universal Film Manufacturing Company
Production Countries:
United States of America
Ratings / Certifications:
US: NR
Runtime: 50
Ida May Park started in the film business as a scriptwriter, but in 1917 Universal announced that Park would direct films with actress and producer Dorothy Phillips for the company’s Bluebird brand. Park’s films often had a strong female perspective and The Risky Road is no exception. The story of a country girl who comes to the city to work, but falls for a rich man and undeservedly gets a bad reputation, the film was marketed as “the drama every woman should see”. The surviving fragment, showing the despair of Phillips’s character, is a real cinematic gem that leaves one yearning for more material of the film to be discovered. In 2008, a tinted nitrate fragment, with Swedish intertitles at the opening of the second reel, was deposited at the Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet. From the fragment, a 35mm B&W duplicate negative was made, from which this print was struck using the tinting of the nitrate as color reference.
Through a chance meeting, stenographer Marjorie Helmer becomes acquainted with Melville Kingston, a millionaire whose cynical views of love and marriage have been influenced strongly by his brother Miles's unhappy marriage. When Melville offers to support Marjorie, she realizes that his intentions are not honorable and stoutly refuses. Later, however, she loses her job, and at her wits' end, agrees to accept Melville's gifts provided that he treats her with respect. Marjorie interprets reports of a "Mrs. Kingston," actually Melville's brother's wife, as evidence that Melville is a cad and sends for her old sweetheart, Robert Grant, in despair. When Robert visits the lavishly attired Marjorie in her expensive apartment, however, he assumes the worst and attacks her. In the end, Melville confesses that he loves Marjorie and wishes to marry her.
