Week of October 4th - "God's Country and the Law"

God's Country and the Law

Showing this week 100 years ago at The Strand Theatre was God's Country and the Law, a 1921 American silent drama film produced by Pine Tree Pictures and distributed by Arrow Films. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with Fred C. Jones and Gladys Leslie in the leading roles. It was adapted from the 1915 novel God’s Country and the Woman by James Oliver Curwood, which had been previously filmed under that title in 1916.

'Poleon and his daughter Oachi live a quiet existence in the North Woods, as do their neighbors, André and Marie Beauvais. Doré, a villainous whiskey runner fleeing from the Northwest Mounted Police, is hospitably welcomed by 'Poleon; but when he forces his attentions on Oachi, her father drives him away. Terror-stricken by the loss of his rattlesnake idol, and thus deprived of communion with the evil spirits, he is welcomed at André and Marie's cabin but is likewise thrashed soundly and sent on his way. Doré returns when Marie is ill, in André's absence, and kidnaps her during a storm; she escapes and leaps over an embankment, there to be found unconscious by Oachi the next day. Doré, driven mad with fear, returns to their home wounded, and a vision of Marie brings his death.

—Pamela Short