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Nell Shipman Film Festival calls attention to 1920’s Idaho filmmaker
Archive
October 22 was a day when the magic of the silent film was revived with the screening of “Something New,” a black and white silent film produced in 1920 by an Idaho woman filmmaker. A beautiful, live “soundtrack,” performed by Boise organist Doug Lemmon at the richly renovated Egyptian Theatre, accompanied it and four other once-lost treasures of 20’s filmmaking.
Today, her work and life are once more of interest. Nearly twenty years ago,Tom Trusky, a Boise State English professor and the world’s leading expert on Shipman, discovered some “badly photocopied essays” written by her which recounted her experiences of working and living in Idaho.
Although her films were believed to have been lost, Trusky recovered five of them over a number of years and has seen several of them released on video. In conjunction with BSU’s Western Writers Series, he edited and published Shipman’s autobiography “The Silent Screen and My Talking Heart.” He is currently at work editing her correspondence from 1918 to 1970 – the year of her death.
Shipman moved to Priest Lake in northern Idaho, where she filmed six movies. Her entourage included a menagerie of 70 trained animals which acted in her films, including horses, dogs, opossums, deer, a cougar and a bear. Shipman “was ahead of her time in many respects”, says Trusky. She treated her animals humanely, treated the land with respect, and used female heroes in her films.
Her three years in northern Idaho were far from carefree. When a landlord tripled her rent, she moved and built Lionhead Lodge. But the iced-over lake could only be traversed by boat, so they had to break up the ice as they went. With seventy animals, this could not have been a quick or simple undertaking.
After losing her money to a bankrupt distributor, Shipman’s film crew broke up and returned to Hollywood. She, her son, and her director/lover stayed in Idaho to take care of the animals. Somewhere during this time, a saboteur poisoned her favorite dog and leading animal star. Then her lover’s foot became gangrenous and he nearly died. He took off on a delirious jaunt across the frozen lake, but Shipman chased him down and got him medical attention.
A media attack alleged that she mistreated her animals because many were dying due to the extreme cold and the lack of food brought on by Shipman’s poverty.
Although she was never again a successful actress (she had starred in all but one of her movies), she wrote screenplays such as Cary Grant’s 1934 “Wings in the Dark,” novels, and articles for “Redbook.”
A Canadian movie company’s documentary crew filmed the Nell Shipman Film Festival. Their documentary includes footage from the festival and interviews with Trusky, as well as material from BSU’s Idaho Film Collection. Representatives of Goldie Hawn Productions, interested in producing a feature film on Shipman, also attended. Portions of the proceeds from the festival will go to support the Egyptian Theatre Organ Society.