by Hans J. Wollstein
synopsis
Based on William McLeod Raine's 1917 novel The Yukon Trail, a Tale of the North, this long-lost silent melodrama featured Francis X. Bushman and Neil Hamilton, a couple of prospectors who kill a crazed hermit in self-defense. The hermit's daughter (June Marlowe) arrives to claim her inheritance, and when she falls in love with Hamilton, and he with her, Bushman confesses to the sheriff (James Farley). Our heroes are exonerated, however, and Bushman leaves the lovers to their happiness. One in a score of nearly identical action-adventures ground out by Universal in the late '20s, The Grip of the Yukon was directed by one of studio owner Carl Laemmle's many relatives.
