The Planter
Cast & Crew
T. N. Heffron
[frederick] Tyrone Power
Lamar Johnstone
Helen Bateman
Lucille King
Mabel Wiles
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
David Mann, a widow's pampered son, leaves his Maine home to investigate a southern Mexico rubber plantation in which loansharks want his mother to invest. After witnessing horrors perpetrated against Yaqui slaves and learning that his mother did invest, David attempts to instigate reforms. David is captivated when his housekeeper Andrea swims in the nude, but their lovemaking is interrupted by a village yellow fever epidemic. Andrea leaves, and David is nursed to health by Ludwig Hertzer, the most feared of the planters, who hates Yaquis because native bandits killed his wife. After Consuela, a slave trader's daughter, helps David start a school and agrees to marry him, Hertzer, who desires her, claims control of David's plantation so that David is forced to return to Maine to prove his ownership. When Consuela repulses Hertzer, he attempts to mate her with a slave, but the slaves revolt and Hertzer is left hamstrung by a Yaqui chief, whom he earlier flogged and whose sister he killed. Hertzer crawls to Consuela's hut and sets it afire, but David returns and rescues her. Before Hertzer dies in the flames, David reveals that Consuela is Hertzer's daughter.
Director
T. N. Heffron
Cast
[frederick] Tyrone Power
Lamar Johnstone
Helen Bateman
Lucille King
Mabel Wiles
Pearl Elmore
L. Encinas
George R. Odell
Alice Winchester
James Donald
Louis Fitzroy
Grace Whitehead
P. C. Hartigan
Laura Winston
Lottie Kruse
J. N. Macdonald
Harry Davenport
John Nicholson
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
F. M. Manson, a Nevada mining millionaire, was the president of the Nevada Motion Picture Corp., which was located in Pasadena, CA. Although the film's setting was Mexico, Guatemala was chosen for location shooting because of troubles in Mexico, according to a news item. John Ince, then the managing producer of Nevada Motion Picture Corp., began filming in Guatemala in the fall of 1916 with Joseph Boyle, his assistant director; William Black, photographer; Robert Turnbull, assistant photographer; cast members including Tyrone Power, Edith Sterling, Hal Cooley, Lamar Johnstone, Louis Fitzroy, Norbert Myles, Maud Emery Taylor, Grace Lewis, Mrs. Harry Davenport, George Odell, Jessie Burnett and Philip Hansen; and author Herman Whitaker. A news item from December 23, 1916 reported that director Ince and assistant director Boyle left the company and were replaced by William J. Bauman and "Director Rice," presumably Roy Rice, an assistant director at that time. The film was reviewed in a ten reel version in August 1917. It was listed in release charts at that time. Mutual Film Corp. released a seven reel version on November 12, 1917. It is possible that the ten reel version never was released to theaters. Reviews and news items appearing at the time of the film's release credit T. N. Heffron with direction, George W. Lawrence and H. M. Hawkins as cameramen. Some of the cast members who were involved with the shooting in the fall of 1916 were not credited in reviews.
