A growing source of silent era film information. This listing is from The Progressive Silent Film List by Carl Bennett. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

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	Mary Duncan. Frame enlargement: Silent Era image collection.

Cast: Charles Farrell [Lem Tustine], Mary Duncan [Kate], David Torrence [J.L. Tustine, Lem’s father], Edith Yorke [Mrs. Tustine], Guinn Williams (Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams) [a farmhand]; Dawn O’Day (Anne Shirley) [Mary Tustine], Dick Alexander (Richard Alexander) [Mac], Tom Maguire [Matey], Pat Rooney (Patrick Rooney) [Butch], Roscoe Ates [a farmhand], Edward Brady [a farmhand], Mark Hamilton [a farmhand], Jack Pennick [a farmhand], Helen Lynch [the flirting woman on the train], Marjorie Beebe [Kate’s waitress friend], Ivan Linow [the cab driver restaurant patron], Joe Brown [a restaurant patron], Arnold Lucy [a restaurant patron], Eddie Boland [a restaurant patron], Ed Clay, Harry Gripp, Werner Klingler, Harry Leonard, David Rollins, William Sundholm

Fox Film Corporation production; distributed by Fox Film Corporation. / Scenario by Berthold Viertel and Marion Orth, from the adaptation by Berthold Viertel and Marion Orth of the German translation by Herman Bing of the play The Mud Turtle by Elliott Lester. Art direction by [?] Edgar G. Ulmer? Settings (set design) by Harry Oliver. Costumes (costume design) by Sophie Wachner. Assistant directors, William Tummel and Frank Powolny. Photography (cinematography) by Ernest Palmer. Film editors, Katharine Hilliker and H.H. Caldwell. Titled (intertitles written) by Katharine Hilliker and H.H. Caldwell. Presented by William Fox. / © 10 January 1930 by Fox Film Corporation [LP984]. / [?] Movietone 35mm spherical 1.20:1 format and/or Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format? / Farm scenes were shot outside Athena, Oregon, in August 1928, with some scenes directed by William Tummel while Murnau recovered from a burst appendix. [?] Some references list the length of the silent version at 8217 feet. Murnau voided his contract and left the Fox studio in February 1929, before the film’s completion. The latter portion of the film was partially reshot by A.F. ‘Buddy’ Erickson, adding new sound sequences in [?] Western Electric Movietone sound-on-film synchronized sound system?, with dialogue by Elliott Lester, and A.H. Van Buren and A.F. ‘Buddy’ Erickson as “stage directors,” with a musical score by Arthur Kay and sound recording by Harold Hobson. The film was then reedited by the studio, and released as City Girl on 16 February 1930. This was thought to have been a lost film, but a print of the silent 1930 rerelease version was rediscovered in the Fox vaults in 1970. The frame aspect of the surviving print suggests that the film was deliberately shot in the narrower 1.20:1 aspect to accommodate a Movietone optical soundtrack in release prints. / Silent film.

Drama.

Survival status: Prints exist [35mm positive (of the 1930 silent version)]; and in private film collections [16mm reduction positives].

Current rights holder: (unknown)

Keywords: Abuse - Advertising: Billboards - Anger - Animals: Cats, Horses - Apartments - Barometers - Baskets - Bets - Birds: Mechanical - Cages - Children - Clocks - Clothing: Overalls, Stockings - Commodities - Communication: Telegrams - Compacts - Crowds - Dirt roads - Electric fans - Families: Daughters-in-Law, Fathers, Father-son relationships, Husbands, Mothers, Sons, Wives - Farms: Farm equipment, Farmers, Farmhands, Harvests - Fences: Barbed wire - Fights - Flowers - Food: Bread, Sandwiches - Furniture: Chairs (Rocking) - Gates - Handkerchiefs - Handwriting - Hats: Straw - House plants - Injuries - Kisses - Kitchens - Labor: Labor walkouts - Lamps - Lanterns - Lechery - Lunches - Machines (Fortune-telling, Harvesting, Scales, Sewing) - Mailboxes - Makeup - Marriages: Honeymoons, Marriage proposals - Medical: Bandages, First-aid - Mirrors - Money: Coins - Moons - Newspapers: Newspaper boys, Newsstands - Paintings - Picture postcards - Police: Policemen - Railroad tracks - Religion: Praying - Restaurants: Coffee pots, Meal tickets, Menus, Waitresses - Sexual harrassment - Signage - Smoke - Suitcases - Thumbtacks - Tips - Tobacco: Cigarettes - Transportation: Automobiles, Elevated trains, Taxi cabs, Trains (Conductors, Train stations, Train tracks), Wagons - Travel - Umbrellas - USA: Illinois (Chicago), Minnesota, Oregon (Pendleton), Pacific Northwest - Wagers - Wallets - Washboards - Weapons: Guns - Wheat

Listing updated: 30 July 2010.

References: Film credits, film viewing : Everson-American pp. 14, 310w, 326, 328-329, 336; Limbacher-Feature p. 45; Lloyd-Seventy p. 34; LoC-MoPic-2 p. 137; McCaffrey-Guide p. 12; Shipman-Cinema p. 108 : Cinemonkey-16 pp. 15-21, 44; ClasIm-226 p. 41 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.

Home video: Blu-ray Disc, DVD.