LINDA (1929)

Fascinating on many levels.  If only it were a better film!  Directed by Dorothy Davenport, one of Hollywood’s few female directors at the time, the story, which has D.W. Griffith written all over it (not a plus in 1929) charts the sorry, if eventually triumphant, path of teenager Helen Foster, a kid from a penniless Appalachian family (wastrel dad, worn out mom, many siblings), bartered by her father into a loveless marriage with much older Noah Berry Sr., then blindsided when a previous wife and child show up.*  Yikes!  Pregnant herself, she gives birth before heading north to improve herself with help from a rich benefactress.  Finds love too, with the lady’s brother (no thank you) and the inner-city physician she’d met back in the woods (Warner Baxter, yes thank you).  Lots more in this vein.  Yet, as melodramatic and filled with coincidence as it is, Davenport was a natural behind the camera, and got lucky in cinematographer Henry Cronjager who knew the territory from his superb work on TOL’ABLE DAVID/’21.  (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2021/06/still-freshly-felt-moving-in-its.html)  And what a backstory on Davenport.  Not only the daughter of character actor Harry Davenport (kindly doctor in GONE WITH THE WIND; Grandad in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS), she’s also the widow of silent film star Wallace Reid (note billing as Mrs. Wallace Reid), a major Hollywood star who died addicted to the morphine Paramount got him hooked on to complete a picture in production.  Some things never change.  (NOTE:  LINDA has been successfully restored by The Library of Congress - though with a rather odd be-bop influenced score.  Find it here:  https://archive.org/details/linda_1929)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *When the first wife shows up with the kid she had with Noah Berry Sr could it be Noah Berry Jr, best known as James Garner’s Dad/sidekick on THE ROCKFORD FILES?  No credit listed, but he’d have been just the right age.  I’d put money on it.