Tess of the Storm Country
Cast & Crew
Edwin Stanton Porter
Mary Pickford
Harold Lockwood
Olive Golden
David Hartford
Louise Dunlap
Film Details
Synopsis
Tessibel Skinner, the daughter of a poor fisherman wrongly convicted of murder, is befriended by Frederick Graves and his sister Teola. When Frederick's friend Dan Jordan visits, Dan and Teola fall in love, but he returns to school, unaware that she is pregnant. Before Teola can tell Dan, she learns that he has died in a fire. Desperate, she goes to Tess, who takes the newborn child to save Teola the pain of rejection by her stern minister father Elias. The town shuns Tess, and Frederick, although he loves her, cannot forgive her "sin." When the baby becomes dangerously ill, Tess takes it to church to be baptized, but Elias refuses, chastizing her publicly. Teola, remorseful, finally comes forward to claim the baby, thus shaming Elias, who blesses Tess for her kindliness. In the end, Teola and the baby die, Tess's father is released from prison after the real murderer is found, and Frederick is granted forgiveness by Tess.
Director
Edwin Stanton Porter
Cast
Mary Pickford
Harold Lockwood
Olive Golden
David Hartford
Louise Dunlap
W. R. Walters
Richard Garrick
Eugene Walter
Lorraine Thompson
Jack Henry
H. R. Macy
H. L. Griffith
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Moving Picture World says "the photography is Porterian," and modern sources list Porter as the cameraman as well as the director. Pickford re-made Tess of the Storm Country for her own company in 1922 with John S. Robertson directing (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.5577). This was her only remake. White's novel was filmed again by Fox in 1932, with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell starring and Alfred Santell directing, and by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1960, with Diane Baker starring and Paul Guilfoyle directing. White's sequel to her novel, The Secret of the Storm Country, was filmed in 1917.
