The Southerners (1914)
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Mabel Trunnelle | Julius A. Mood Jr. | Richard Ridgely (Director)
Rest of cast:
Bigelow Cooper | Anne Leonard | Richard Tucker | Alan Crolius | Duncan McRae | Augustus Phillips | Harry Linson | Rex Ingram | Herbert Prior | Cyrus Townsend Brady (Novel)
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“The Southerners”
Three-reel Edison feature — adapted from Cyrus Townsend Brady’s novel.
Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison.
Mary Annan — Mabel Trunnelle
Beverly, her brother — Julius A. Mood, Jr.
General Peyton, C. S. A — Bigelow Cooper
Mrs. Peyton — Anne Leonard
Willis Peyton, C. S. A, Boyd Peyton, U. S. N., his sons — Richard Tucker, Allen Crolius
Robert Darrow — Herbert Prior
David Glasgow Farragut — Duncan McRae
The Chaplain — Harry Linson
Captain Johnson — Augustus Phillips
The feature that was in process of production when the Edison Studio burned, The Southerners, has apparently not suffered thereby. It is a story of love and adventure in war times whose main incidents are grouped around the Battle of Mobile Bay. The cast comprises some of the finest of photodrama interpreters and they respond so well to what is required of them that no fault can be found with their work. Mabel Trunnelle carries off the honors, a habit that seems to be growing on her, with Bigelow Cooper a good second.
The story opens with a scene of great beauty, one of Ridgely’s well-chosen natural backgrounds. His taste of selection contributes heavily to the charm of productions he directs. Mary Annan, typical southern girl, proud, pure and sweet, has what Louis the Eleventh of France decided to be distinctly a feminine attribute when he wrote on a window pane at Fontainbleau with his diamond ring, “Souvent femme variee,” or, in English, “Ladies often change their minds.” It has since been discovered that gentlemen may take the same liberty, but tradition has fastened inconstancy on woman. Mary Annan is in a state of doubt, hovering between Boyd Peyton and Robert Darrow, with the odds in favor of Peyton. The latter is an officer of the United States Navy, and his homecoming at the beginning of war starts the story.
The antipathy between southerners and northerners, one dating back to the days of Cavaliers and Roundheads, was bitterest among women. The “Yankee” represented all that was vulgar to the average southern lady and she became a tremendous factor in the Civil War, urging her loved ones to fight for the “Southern Cause,” ready to aid them in every extremity, at once the bravest and gentlest of creatures, idolized and idealized from those days of blood and iron to these of apology and grape juice.
On Boyd Peyton falls the self-struggle that tortured many a southern man serving the flag at the beginning of hostilities between brother Americans. Honor demanded allegiance to the nation, inclination, allegiance to family. The young naval officer was asked by his friends and expected by his sweetheart to lead a company in battling for “The Cause,” but he decides for the flag and loses the girl. Mary pledges herself to Robert Darrow, Boyd’s rival.
The Southerners now takes on a military character. We are shown the field actions in which Darrow participates and in which he meets with a brave man’s death. More stirring are the scenes aboard the flagship “Hartford” in which Boyd Peyton serves under Farragut. Boyd’s father, General Peyton, is an officer at Fort Morgan during the action between Farragut’s fleet and the shore batteries, so that we view what was common enough in those times, men of the same blood arrayed against one another in deadly conflict.
Boyd Peyton performs an act of valor beneath his father’s eyes, when he commands an open boat that Farragut sends to the relief of men on the sinking “Tecumseh,” General Peyton watching the exploit through a glass from the walls of the fort. The young officer is desperately wounded later in the action, and he is taken ashore when Mobile is captured, to become the charge of Mary Annan. When peace comes to the land, it comes to their young hearts in complete reconciliation.
The deck scenes during action are those of highest value, affording a spirited touch of realism. Edison productions of naval warfare have been consistently strong in this particular, but there is a tendency in them not to glimpse the sea which might be corrected in future, similar plays. The exploit of Boyd Peyton in saving the Tecumseh’s men while exposed to a storm of shell from the forts would have contributed materially to the effect. To see him leave the ship and return again and cover his absence with a subtitle is not enough. While the people in front readily accept a statement that the hero has done a brave thing, they would prefer to see him do it.
The Edison Company has done much to keep alive patriotism by plays of this kind, and is well equipped by experience to give others. Why not release one or more features showing events of the war between this country and Mexico in 1845, the battles won by Taylor, or those by Scott, or the reduction of California by Fremont and Stockton, all resulting in the treaty which gave us California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, with maps to show what civilization gained at that period of our history.
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Scene from The Southerners (Edison)
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Collection: Moving Picture World, May 1914