The Pride of the Clan (1917)

There’s something of a documentary feel to this rather length drama about “Marget” (Mary Pickford). She’s the daughter of the island chieftain who rules the place with a rod of puritanical iron. Maybe that’s what attracted him to his maker because one stormy day he doesn’t make it back from a fishing trip and so she becomes the boss. Now she’s the antithesis of her late father. She has a sweet nature and engenders affection from the natives - especially from the young “Jamie” (Matt Moore)! With him approaching his majority, though, it emerges that he (or his mother) has been keeping quite a secret that will necessitate a life-changing visit from the “Countess of Dunstable” (Kathryn Brown-Decker) whose husband decides that any future for this bright young man must mean severing all ties with his homeland. To that end he convinces “Magret” to banish the young “Jamie” but in doing that she banished love from her heart and facilitates a denouement that could spell tragedy, or maybe not…? The story follows fairly standard plot lines but the photography is really good at illustrating the bleakness of their island home (OK, so Massachusetts rather than the Hebrides) and the bedraggled and subsistence existence of this seafaring community is well presented used that imagery and some creative costume design. Pickford and Moore have a sort of rugged chemistry between them and rather despite myself, I found the ending quite attractive. It is too long, and could probably have lost twenty minutes without harming the storyline or the characterisations, but on that last front - at least Maurice Tourneur does try to make this a love story about plausible people.