The Great Gamble is a 1919 American silent adventure film serial written, directed and produced by Joseph A. Golden. Produced by Western Photoplays and distributed by Pathé Exchange, the fifteen-episode serial starred Charles Hutchison, Anna Luther and Richard Neill. The plot concerns twin sisters raised in different circumstances and a criminal attempt to substitute one for the other to obtain their father's fortune.

Pathé released the original 31-reel version in fifteen weekly installments between August 3 and November 9, 1919. For its 1920 French release as Le Grand Jeu, the serial was abridged to twelve episodes and 24 reels. A still shorter Soviet re-edit survives in two incomplete copies preserved by Gosfilmofond, which the Cineteca del Friuli combined to reconstruct the Soviet version.

Plot The wife of wealthy mine owner Roger Morton runs away with the criminal Richard Blake, taking one of their twin daughters, Eleanor, and leaving the other, Aline, with her father. After Catherine Morton is lost when their steamer catches fire, Blake rescues Eleanor and raises her among criminals, while Aline grows up in wealth and refinement. Years later, Blake learns that Aline will inherit Morton's fortune. Noting the sisters' physical resemblance, he plans to abduct Aline and substitute Eleanor for her.

The gang repeatedly attempts to abduct Aline. Ralph Darrell, a young businessman pursued by the police for a murder committed by the gang's leader, opposes their plans and attempts to prove his innocence.

Cast The principal cast was:

Charles Hutchison as Ralph Darrell Anna Luther as Aline Morton and Eleanor “Nell” Morton Richard Neill as Richard Blake William F. “Billy” Moran as Shorty “the Rat” William Cavanaugh as Cooley Warren Cook as Roger Morton Edith Thornton as Catherine Morton Karl Dane as a sea captain

Laura LaPlante has sometimes been credited with an early appearance in the serial, but the surviving footage does not substantiate the attribution.

Production

Following Hutchison's appearance in Golden's Wolves of Kultur (1918), film historian Kalton C. Lahue wrote that the fan mail Hutchison received led Golden to cast him in his next serial. In February 1919, Western Photoplays announced that Anna Luther would appear with Hutchison in a new fifteen-episode serial to be written, directed and produced by Golden. By February 13, filming was underway in Florida. Cast member Billy Moran visited Chattanooga, Tennessee, to scout locations for later sequences and stated that the company intended to work there after completing its Florida filming.

Eleven members of the company arrived in Chattanooga from Jacksonville, Florida, on February 24, accompanied by Golden. Western Photoplays planned to spend at least two weeks filming principally around Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain and sought local horsemen for riding scenes. The company then intended to return to New York to complete the interiors. Around the same time, Western Photoplays general manager A. Alperstein announced that the serial's Far Eastern territorial rights had been sold before its completion, reportedly on the strength of the producer's reputation. A June trade report stated that E. S. Manheimer had acquired the foreign distribution rights to the 31-reel serial.

After completing its southern location work, the company stopped in Washington, D.C., for several days and filmed in and around public buildings. Filming was completed by early July after approximately five months. A contemporary report described one of the final scenes, in which Hutchison rode a motorcycle up an embankment, pursued a train and leaped onto its rear platform. Golden filmed the interiors at the Crystal–Western Photoplays Studios in the Bronx. Confirmed exterior locations included Umbrella Rock and Lookout Mountain in Tennessee; Miami and the Everglades in Florida; Washington, D.C.; Ausable Chasm and Keeseville in New York; and the since-demolished John H. Matthews House at Riverside Drive and West 90th Street in Manhattan.

Pathé's publicity centered on Hutchison's refusal to use a stunt double. An August 1919 trade article claimed that Golden had planned more than twenty stunts that he considered sufficiently dangerous to justify employing a double, but that Hutchison refused and helped plan and perform the sequences himself. The feats described included climbing between two buildings by bracing himself against their walls, jumping between rooftops, swinging into a window forty feet above the ground, diving from a 125-foot grain elevator, riding a horse across a fallen tree over a chasm and jumping onto a moving locomotive as it crossed a bridge.

During the Tennessee location work, Hutchison was thrown against a tree while riding down a mountainside and was severely shaken. By April 12, trade reports stated that he had completely recovered. Film historian Anthony Slide states that Western Photoplays ceased production before filming was completed and that the Astra Film Corporation finished the serial. Contemporary trade reports, however, continued to identify The Great Gamble as a Western Photoplays production directed by Golden, and the July completion notice credited Golden with completing the photography without mentioning Astra.

Release and promotion

Western Photoplays screened the first three completed episodes at its Bronx studio in April 1919. A second trade showing, held at the New York Theatre Roof on June 20, attracted several hundred exhibitors. Golden, Western Photoplays general manager A. Alperstein and members of the cast attended. The three episodes shown were The Great Gamble, The Clock of Doom and Into the Chasm.

Pathé positioned The Great Gamble as the first release in a newly announced program of seven serials extending through January 1921. It promoted the production as a “tense gripping story of crook life” and advertised it as “The Greatest Stunt Serial Ever Produced”. Publicity emphasized Hutchison's stunt work, crediting him with such feats as leaping between rooftops, diving from a grain elevator, fighting a bear and leaping from an aircraft into the ocean. Pathé reported strong advance bookings, including engagements at theaters that had not previously exhibited serials. The weekly release began on August 3, 1919.

The distributor supplied exhibitors with a thirty-six-page campaign book containing illustrated episode summaries, advertising suggestions, reproducible cuts and advertisements that could be adapted to local conditions. Its cover reproduced the serial's twenty-four-sheet poster, which Pathé planned to display nationally on billboards at its own expense. Designed by Frederick Brown McDann, the poster depicted one of Hutchison's stunts and advertised the serial as “electric in its dynamic force and high voltage climaxes”.

In 1923, Western Photoplays stockholders sued Pathé Exchange over money allegedly still due from the serial's 1919 exhibition. The court ruled in Pathé's favor. The following year, Clarion Photoplays, part of the Weiss Brothers–Artclass organization, released five five-reel features described as revisions of The Great Gamble and Golden's earlier serial, Wolves of Kultur: Ten After Ten, The Law Demands, The Fatal Plunge, The Radio Flyer and Fangs of the Wolf.

Reception Reviewing the first seven reels for The Moving Picture World, C. S. Sewell wrote that the serial's abundant thrills and stunts should satisfy audiences who enjoyed the form, although he considered its story conventional and exaggerated. He praised Hutchison's personality and agility, Luther's performance in the dual role and the supporting cast, while describing Neill as a typical serial villain. Sewell observed that the three-reel opening installment largely established the story, after which the action accelerated through the second and third episodes.

Exhibitors subsequently reported favorable audience responses. In January 1920, Albert G. Gilruth of the Foto Play Theatre in Watertown, South Dakota, called the production “the best serial you can buy” and “a money-getter”. G. M. McClain of the Star Theatre in Barry, Illinois, reported that its fourteenth episode had played to packed houses and described it as the best serial he had exhibited. In March, W. C. Cleeton of the Gem Theatre in Higbee, Missouri, said that the serial was becoming stronger by its fourth episode. Stephen Arnott of the Colonial Theatre in Bruceville, Indiana, called it one of Pathé's best serials, compared its popularity favorably with The Neglected Wife, and recommended it to other exhibitors.

The French release received a similarly favorable assessment in La Cinématographie française. Reviewing its opening episodes, the magazine's critic wrote that a successful serial required both unexpected situations and performers capable of unusual athletic and acrobatic feats. The critic found that Le Grand Jeu met both requirements and praised its dramatic and picturesque situations and Hutchison's agility, skill and physical strength.

Episodes + American release schedule No. Title Release date 1 The Great Gamble August 3, 1919 2 The Clock of Doom August 10, 1919 3 Into the Chasm August 17, 1919 4 In the Law's Grip August 24, 1919 5 Draught of Death August 31, 1919 6 Out of the Clouds September 7, 1919 7 The Crawling Menace September 14, 1919 8 The Ring of Fire September 21, 1919 9 Through Iron Doors September 28, 1919 10 Written in Blood October 5, 1919 11 The Stolen Identity October 12, 1919 12 The Wolf Pack October 19, 1919 13 Barriers of Flame October 26, 1919 14 Under Arrest November 2, 1919 15 Out of the Shadows November 9, 1919

Preservation and reconstruction The complete fifteen-episode American version is not known to survive. An inquiry through the International Federation of Film Archives identified two incomplete safety copies at Gosfilmofond in Moscow. The archive held the 19- and 22-reel copies under the titles Dvoynoye priklyucheniye and Bol'shaya igra, respectively. Researchers identified Dvoynoye priklyucheniye as a version of The Great Gamble in January 2016 and determined the following year that Bol'shaya igra represented another version of the same serial.

Both copies derive from the abridged French edition, which Soviet distributors further reorganized into a three-part version released in 1927 as Kleimo prestuplenia (“The Stigma of Crime”). The Soviet adaptation changed the protagonists from wealthy businessmen into writers and recast the criminals as would-be literary thieves. Its editors removed scenes involving mine workers and made other changes that introduced inconsistencies into the plot.

Gosfilmofond made the safety copies during the 1970s from nitrate elements that were later destroyed. Similar patterns of wear suggest that both copies probably derived from the same nitrate positive. Bol'shaya igra preserved a cleaner image but contained shortened or missing intertitles; the more worn Dvoynoye priklyucheniye retained more complete titles.

The Cineteca del Friuli scanned Bol'shaya igra in 2K and supplemented it with footage and intertitles from Dvoynoye priklyucheniye. To reconstruct the narrative and restore some titles, the archive consulted Soviet censorship records, fictionalized newspaper summaries of the episodes published in Vermont's The Caledonian-Record, and Téramond's French novelization.

The reconstruction retains the Soviet arrangement rather than attempting to recreate the original American continuity. The restorers moved the surviving portion of the prologue to the end as a flashback and reordered several other sequences. Most of the prologue, a sequence involving Seminole people and the entire epilogue remain missing. Presented with Russian intertitles, the reconstruction runs approximately 320 minutes at 15 frames per second.

Notes

References

External links

The Great Gamble at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto