The Great Adventure (1918)

Alice Blaché: The Great Adventure (1918). Slide from IMDb.

Alice Blaché: The Great Adventure (1918). Magazine advertisement from Wikipedia.

Alice Blaché: The Great Adventure (1918). Bessie Love as Ragna Jansen, "Rags". Photo from Wikipedia.

Alice Blaché: The Great Adventure (1918). Bessie Love as Ragna Jansen, "Rags" and Flora Finch as her aunt. Photo from Wikipedia.

THE GREAT ADVENTURE (Pathé Exchange, US 1918)
    Dir: Alice Guy Blaché; ph: George K. Hollister, John G. Haas; adapted by Agnes C. Johnson from “The Painted Scene”, by Henry Kitchell Webster; cast: Bessie Love, Flora Finch, Donald Hall, Chester Barnett, Florence Short; rel. 10.3.1918.
    35 mm, 3032 ft /16 fps/ 51 min – 925 m /16 fps/ 51 min – BFI / NFTVA.
    English intertitles.
    Grand piano: Donald Sosin.
    Viewed at Cinema Ruffo, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Fort Lee, 15 Oct 2004

Richard Koszarski (GCM): "Alice Guy Blaché’s last surviving film (and last Fort Lee production) has recently been restored by the NFTVA from a somewhat abridged 28 mm copy. As noted by Alison McMahon, it demonstrates the director’s continuing interest in complex female characterizations even at the very end of her career, and features engaging performances from all the women in the cast, each of whom represents a different ideal of contemporary womanhood. The theatrical background also provides a rich opportunity for Blaché to explore her interest in role-playing, show business, and the need to balance romantic illusion with practical common sense."

"Alice and her husband Herbert had built a new Solax studio on Lemoine Avenue in Fort Lee in 1912. After the introduction of features the Blachés often directed films here for others, or even leased the facility outright (Goldwyn made its first films here early in 1917, before moving to the larger Universal studio). Pathé occupied the studio from the summer of 1917, and Alice Blaché appears to have directed this film for them at the instigation of her friend Albert Capellani, who was then its manager." – Richard Koszarski (GCM)

AA: A country girl (Bessie Love) becomes a star of the local theater in a patriotic success play called "The Spring of the Year". The theatre world is portrayed in caricature, but there are dreams about the "cinema, where talent is truly appreciated" (there was a good laugh from the audience here). New York provides "the great adventure" of the film's title on a date with the actor Mr. Sheen (Donald Hall) with a visit to the zoo and comic blunders on the beach.

The 28 mm source is poor, the faces burned white.

Bessie Love's (1898–1986) film career had started two years earlier, but she had at once had the tripple whammy of working with Griffith (Intolerance), William S. Hart (The Aryan) and Douglas Fairbanks (The Good Bad-Man). 65 years later her last appearances took place in films by Milos Forman (Ragtime), Warren Beatty (Reds) and Tony Scott (The Hunger).

Alice Guy (1873–1968) was a pioneer of the cinema. The Great Adventure was her penultimate film as a director, and the last one with her sole directorial credit. In 1896 (Anno Uno of the cinema) she had been one of the first film directors – before the job description existed. Often people wonder why she finished so early, and with justification.

On the other hand, Alice Guy was one of the last ones from Anno Uno to continue directing. Of the film directors of 1896 I can only think of Cecil M. Hepworth who continued longer (until 1927). The Skladanowskys withdrew in 1897, W. K. L. Dickson in 1899, the Lumières in 1905, R. W. Paul in 1910 and Méliès in 1912. Edwin S. Porter who started in 1898 withdrew in 1915.

Alice Guy: La Fée aux choux / The Cabbage Fairy (1900). Guy directed three films of this subject (1896, 1900, 1902). Her first La Fée aux choux (1896) was shot on 60 mm. In the 1900 version, the fairy is played by Yvonne Serand. There is an affinity with the appearance of Bessie Love in The Great Adventure.

WIKIPEDIA SYNOPSIS

Rags (Love), has found local success and acclaim in her small town as an actress, but dreams of stardom on Broadway. She and her aunt (Finch) go to New York, where she unsuccessfully looks for work in a Broadway chorus. On the advice of Billy Blake (Barnett), she holds up the producer of a Broadway show to get a job. The lead actor in the show, Sheen (Hall), likes Rags, but on a date together, he cannot ride a horse, paddle a canoe, or swim. Embarrassed, he leaves the Broadway show, allowing Billy to take over the male lead, and Rags to take over the female lead.

AFI CATALOG SYNOPSIS

Ragna Jansen, affectionately called "Rags" by her high school chums in Middletown, is assured that she will win instant fame and fortune on Broadway, but when she and her aunt arrive in New York, they find that success does not come so easily. Billy Blake, who is an understudy for Sheen, the leading man in a Broadway show, takes an interest in Rags and helps her to secure a position in the chorus. When Sheen and his wife, the leading lady, quarrel, the wife quits the show and Rags is given the part. She captivates the audience and attracts the leading man, but Billy and actress Hazel Lee, aware of the shallowness of Sheen's character, conspire to prevent the romance. Rags, however, witnesses Sheen's foolishness herself. On a canoeing jaunt, Sheen's inability to swim leads to his public humiliation when Rags, in an impulsive publicity stunt, throws herself in the water, only to find herself forced to rescue the drowning actor. Sheen, disgusted, leaves the show, and Billy wins the leading role as well as Rags's heart.