The Long Chance (1922)

Genres - Drama, Western  |  
  • AllMovie Rating
    5
  • User Ratings (0)
  • Your Rating

Share on

Synopsis by Hans J. Wollstein

One of the silent screen's prettiest ingenues, Marjorie Daw, plays both mother and daughter in this romantic western directed by the capable Jack Conway and based on a Peter B. Kyne story. Losing her husband to the elements while crossing the desert, Daw and her young child are rescued by a gambler with the proverbial heart of gold (former Griffith star Henry B. Walthall). He promises the dying girl to take care of the baby, a promise that he fulfils years later when the girl's inheritance is threatened by a villainous land grabber. Pulp writer Peter B. Kyne's stock-in-trade was babies endangered by the elements, a plot mechanism that also carried his perhaps best-remembered work, Three Godfathers. That story was filmed at least four times, most famously by John Ford in 1948. The actor playing the dying husband in The Long Chance, Leonard Clapham, later changed his name to Tom London and enjoyed a long career playing mostly villains.

Characteristics

Keywords

father, girl, land, orphan, ruthlessness