After the success of TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR-ROOM, William Farnum must have figured that straight melodrama was a good sound genre. His next movie in the field was THE DRIFTER. Farnum plays a big, good-hearted, dangerous Quebecois who returns to his boyhood cabin after searching for his long-lost brother for decades, takes a shine to Phyllis Barrington (also from TEN NIGHTS), who's in love with Bruce Warren. Her father, Noah Beery, for whom Farnum and mysterious stranger Charles Sellon work, disapproves of the match, since Warren runs the competing logging company.
Thus we have all the elements of an old-fashioned meller except for the village idiot. Unfortunately, the movie was produced by cheapskate Willis Kent and directed by B-Western specialist William O'Connor early in his career, so Farnum gets to use a ridiculous stage accent and pace his line readings like he's barnstorming in a tank town. There's a certain insane charm to the movie as everyone takes the plot elements from Oliver Drake's script seriously, but it's assuredly not for the casual movie fan; if you want old-fashioned melodrama done interestingly, you'd do much better with Tod Slaughter's over-the-top cheapies.
Thus we have all the elements of an old-fashioned meller except for the village idiot. Unfortunately, the movie was produced by cheapskate Willis Kent and directed by B-Western specialist William O'Connor early in his career, so Farnum gets to use a ridiculous stage accent and pace his line readings like he's barnstorming in a tank town. There's a certain insane charm to the movie as everyone takes the plot elements from Oliver Drake's script seriously, but it's assuredly not for the casual movie fan; if you want old-fashioned melodrama done interestingly, you'd do much better with Tod Slaughter's over-the-top cheapies.
