The Risky Road (1918)

The Risky Road (1918)

1918-04-08 United States of America 50 Min. PG-13
4.2 2 votes

Overview

Ida May Park started in the film business as a scriptwriter, but in 1917 Universal announced that Park would direct films with actress and producer Dorothy Phillips for the company’s Bluebird brand. Park’s films often had a strong female perspective and The Risky Road is no exception. The story of a country girl who comes to the city to work, but falls for a rich man and undeservedly gets a bad reputation, the film was marketed as “the drama every woman should see”. The surviving fragment, showing the despair of Phillips’s character, is a real cinematic gem that leaves one yearning for more material of the film to be discovered. In 2008, a tinted nitrate fragment, with Swedish intertitles at the opening of the second reel, was deposited at the Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet. From the fragment, a 35mm B&W duplicate negative was made, from which this print was struck using the tinting of the nitrate as color reference.

Cast

Dorothy Phillips is Marjorie Helmer
Marjorie Helmer
William Stowell is Melville Kingston
Melville Kingston
Juanita Hansen is Lottie Bangor
Lottie Bangor
Claire Du Brey is Mrs. Miles Kingston
Mrs. Miles Kingston
George Chesebro is Robert Grant (as George Cheseboro)
Robert Grant (as George Cheseboro)
Edward Cecil is Miles Kingston
Miles Kingston
Joseph W. Girard is Van Belt (as Joseph Girard)
Van Belt (as Joseph Girard)
Sally Starr is Myrtle