Images from a Lost Film of a Forgotten Novel

An annex of sorts to yesterday's post – some of the few surviving images of The Miracle Man. Above we have a lobby card featuring con artist 'The Frog' (Lon Chaney) demonstrating his skills at the feet of good time gal Rose (Betty Compson).

"That dislocation stunt always gets my goat."

I wonder whether those are actual words from the film. The character is much more fiery in the novel: "You give me the shivers! Next time you throw your fit, you throw it before you come around me, or I make you wish you had – see?"

The next images come from the Grosset & Dunlap photoplay edition of The Miracle Man; just three in all, two of which capture the pivotal scene.

And, finally, sheet music to a song inspired by a silent film. Somehow it makes perfect sense.

The Miracle Man on Paper and Nitrate Film

News today that another issue of Canadian Notes and Queries is born. I leave it to publisher Dan Wells to make the pitch:

CNQ 81 is in, and should be on newsstands and making its way to mailboxes by week's end. The Genre Issue, contributors include Margaret Atwood, Mike Barnes, August Bourre, Brian Busby, Grant Buday, Devon Code, Emily Donaldson, William Gibson, Alex Good, Jason Guriel, Jeet Heer, Michael Libling, Roy MacSkimming, Steve Noyes, Anna Porter, Patricia Robertson, Mark Sampson, Brett Alexander Savory, Marko Sijan, Ray Smith, David Solway and James Turner. There's fiction by Halli Villegas, poetry by Jacob Arthur Mooney, a North Wing graphic novel adaptation from The Handmaid's Tale, and an X-Ray broadside (for subscribers) by David Hickey.

To which I add: Yet another fine cover by Seth. I'll never tire of his work.

My contribution this issue concerns The Miracle Man (1914) by Montreal crime novelist Frank L. Packard. His break-out book, it's a fun and entertaining read, though I admit my main interest lies in the 1919 screen adaptation. A lost film, sadly, there's just enough below to give some idea as to why The Miracle Man is considered one of the great silent movies. Enjoy!

A Gentleman of Pleasure Has Arrived

I'm pleased to report that A Gentleman of Pleasure has hit bookstore shelves. The realization of a decades-old dream.

A Prudish Poet's Struggles with Stays

Two poems about ladies' vanity published by John J. MacDonald as a 28-year-old (or so), teetotalling bachelor. He married a couple of years later, but was a supporter of temperance to the end of his days.

Of all MacDonald's verse, the first is my favourite... the second is sure to offend.

The Ultra-fashionable Maids

Those Maids we see, who look so free,
Whom every day we spy;
Whose mien and gate their thoughts relate,
As they go limping by;
Whose crimson cheek, the looks so meek
Would fain defects supply;
Whose frizzled hair, and features fair
Oft charm the human eye;
Are seeming so because on show
Our kind too much rely.

Would they appear to us so dear
Or kindle passion’s flame,
If we knew, and kept in view,
From whence these beauties came-
That human art the greater part
Invented of the same;
That they receive from Mother Eve,
Of what adorns their frame,
But what we know tends more to show
They should not feel but shame.

How oft thus lay the secret way
In which the game is played:-
A shapeless mass, by name a lass,
Is artfully arrayed,
I neatly bound with metal round
And trimmings wisely made,
And padded o’er with worthless store
To cover unbetrayed
The sad defects, which one detects
When nature is displayed.

With tender care they leave quite bare
What parts are fit to face,
Or please the eyes of youths they prize,
No matter what their place.
They daub with paint what they make faint
With binding cord and lace;
And why, forsooth? We know, in truth,
To win the life embrace
Of some they know will not be slow
Through this their will to trace.

And on the skull, already dull
With low and grovelling care,
(By oil and paint, without restraint,
Of nature’s dress stript bare)
Is placed all round a shapeless mound
Of manufactured hair,
Which does not tend to fragrance lend,
Where polypi prepare,
For future breeds to hide their deeds,
A comfortable lair.

The Globe and Mail, 15 December 1877

For Miss A—

Her slender waist so tightly laced,
It makes her face look black;
Her cheeks so pale with efforts frail
To keep life’s current back;
For this, thinks she, makes lovers see
The charms her features lack.

Her’s answers just the Hindoo bust
Or Negroe’s ruder form;
Her features glow with sudden woe
And anger’s bitter storm;
She labours so to gain a beau,
Some chilly heart to warm.

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