Pauline Frederick in "Devils Island" (1926)
28A wealthy Parisian surgeon (Richard Tucker) sentenced to life at the brutal penal colony of the infamous Devil's Island, located off the coast of South America, where he endures harsh conditions and struggles to survive within the prison's cruel environment. His fiancée (Pauline Frederick) is devastated.
After seven years he is released on parole to French Guiana and at Cayenne, capital of that small territory, he finds his old sweetheart awaiting him. French law allows (after seven years) for prisoners to marry and live in Cayenne. As a convict he must remain there all his life and the woman who married a convict must do the same. The same penalty applies to any children born to them. Such children are branded as convicts and must live out their lives in Cayenne.
They have a child who becomes a celebrated surgeon (George Lewis) after the father dies. The son and mother plan an escape but the son meets a girl (Marian Nixon) on the beach and they fall in love. The son tells mother he will not leave Rose-Marie behind. She too has been born into the convict thing. After they discover the girl is a dancer in a saloon and not a convent girl, the mother persuades the son to escape, so that he can go to Paris and there receive the training which would develop a prodigy into a genius.
But at that moment, they are summoned to the commandant's office. They fear their plans have been discovered but because of the son's great surgical skills, a court of justice decrees that the father should never have been sent to the Penal Colony in the first place and that France as a nation would attempt to rectify that by granting a pardon to his wife and son, and they can return to France.
Rose-Marie is left behind to rot in Cayenne. Safely back in France, the mother is wooed by an old friend (John Miljan) responsible for their pardon. The son, however, realizes his mistake in abandoning Rose-Marie.
With their freedom they put in a request to free the girl, who is at the moment being roughly handled by the commandant of the land. The order for her release is broadcast by radio, and as the official is struggling with her the maneuver toward his radio set. Just as she is too weak to do anything else her release order comes through clear and strong, proving that justice prevails.
A 1926 American Black & White silent romance drama film directed by Frank O'Connor, produced by I.E. Chadwick, written by Leah Baird, cinematography by Andre Barlatier, starring Pauline Frederick, Marian Nixon, George J. Lewis (as George Lewis), Richard Tucker, William R. Dunn (as William Dunn), Harry Northup, Leo White, and John Miljan. Produced and distributed by Chadwick Pictures.
Director Frank O'Connor is a master of the camera-chained-to the-floor school of film-making (but see his next movie, "The Block Signal" (1926), for a real change of style). His pacing is so agile and his staging and compositions so attractive. Barlatier's camera remains absolutely stationary for every second.
One of 10 surviving silents (out of 58) of Pauline Frederick (1883-1938), born Pauline Beatrice Libbey in Boston, an American stage and film actress. She made her stage debut at the age of 17 as a chorus girl in the farce The Rogers Brothers at Harvard, but was fired shortly thereafter. She won other small roles on the stage before being discovered by an illustrator, Harrison Fisher, who called her "the purest American beauty." Nicknamed "The Girl with the Topaz Eyes", Frederick was cast in the lead roles in the touring productions of The Little Gray Lady and The Girl in White in 1906. She briefly retired from acting after her first marriage in 1909, but returned to the stage in 1913 in Joseph and His Brethren. Frederick was already in her 30s when she made her film debut as Donna Roma in "The Eternal City" (1915). She was able to make a successful transition to "talkies" in 1929, and was cast as Joan Crawford's mother in This Modern Age (1931). Frederick did not like acting in sound films and returned to Broadway in 1932 in When the Bough Breaks. She was married five times. In 1925, .the then 43-year-old had a two-year affair with the much younger Clark Gable, then a struggling actor.
Following the successful mid-1948 telecasts of "Othello" (1922) and "The Eagle" (1925), New York City's WJZ (Channel 7), began a series of silent film feature presentations, shown more or less in their entirety, which aired intermittently for the next twelve months. This feature was initially broadcast August 10, 1949 in both New York City on WJZ (Channel 7), in Washington DC on WMAL (Channel 7) and in Baltimore on WAAM (Channel 13).
This movie is worth seeing if only for its gorgeously pictorial photography, and the chance to catch the great Pauline Frederick in a typical role and thus be able to understand and appreciate why she became such a favorite with both critics and fans. Fascinating story and solid performances make this a good film, worth seeing only for Frederick.