So last year Gold Ninja Video sent me an email with the following synopsis:
A mutiny breaks out in a ship over a chest of gold.
In the fracas, the boat crashes along the shore of Ontario’s Lake Superior.
From the wreckage emerges a hulking, snarling figure, caged no more!
Now, with freedom clenched between its razor-sharp fangs, the furry beast escapes into Canada’s dense wilderness. Where it shall be bestowed a new name by all those who lay their terrified eyes upon its deadly form… THE DEVIL BEAR.
Oh, and the Devil Bear is a gorilla.
Well, that closing line certainly sealed the deal.
The history of The Devil Bear is strange and patchy at this remove. Apparently started as a project titled The Spirit of the Wilderness, it was to be a history of Canada’s transformation from wild frontier to urban modern. Thunder Bay Productions promised a state-of-the-art production facility in Ontario, and more movies. After initial well-received nature footage, Spirit sort of faded from view along with Thunder Bay Productions, and then suddenly The Devil Bear made its debut in Buffalo, New York.
The aforementioned mutiny happens during a storm on Lake Superior, with the mutineers beating the captain badly and making off with the chest. The gorilla is the captain’s pet, Borno; neither the synopsis or the movie bothers to tell us Borno saves the captain in the ensuing shipwreck and cares for him in a cave. The Captain, quite addled after his beating, builds a ship’s wheel out of wood.
That bit will be teased out and scenes of Borno in the forest will bewilderingly interrupt:
The actual plot of the movie that involves a young geologist, Bill Sifton (Carroll Nye), who is trying to prove a mine has gold. He is in love with the daughter of a local missionary, Werta (Dorothy Dwan), and we’re going to recognize Sifton’s treacherous partner as one of those nautical ne’er-do-wells from the beginning of the picture.
The plot gets even more complex from there, with treachery, murder, and more scenes of Borno roaming around the woods (he is never explicitly – or subtly, for that matter – called “The Devil Bear”). Borno will eventually carry Werta off to the Captain’s cave and I think we’re supposed to supply “DEVIL BEAR!!!” over the wild gesticulations of the Native American Servant reporting the damsel-napping.
Everybody winds up at the cave, there will be a to-do, the Captain will get conked, returning him to sanity… and doggone if he isn’t the brother of the judge who’s been helping Sifton all this time!
Borno escapes into the woods, where he may remain to this very day, lurking, stalking… in fact, he may be behind you right now.
BOO!!!
Haha hahaha! God, the look on your face!
This is all, incidentally, based on “an autobiographical story” by Sargeson V. Halstead, the founder and head of Thunder Bay Productions. He either had a fascinating life or, you know, is lying.
Gold Ninja’s Justin Decloux says he believes this is an “interim” picture, made between the dominance of silents and the surge of talkies. There is, in fact, a lot of talking in this movie, with the intertitles becoming few and far between after the initial introductions. This puts me in the position of having to figure out what specifically the hell is going on for most of the movie. Sifton heads to the big city to talk to the man we eventually learn is The Judge (I had to find out by reading the packed-in booklet), and a sudden alternate love interest in the Judge’s… daughter? Niece? We’ll eventually learn, almost by accident, that her name is Grace. This led me to expect a much more nuanced denouement than the one I got. But this is the print that The Library and Archives of Canada possessed, so let’s be happy with what we got.
It is a well-made movie. There are a lot of seasoned pros in the mix, not least of which is Dorothy Dwan, who was married to Larry Semon and starred in his rather bizarre version of The Wizard of Oz. Though not credited in the titles, Charles Gemora played Borno. There are some nods to Murnau in double-exposed sequences, and there is quite a bit of outstanding outdoor photography.
And hey, a guy in a gorilla suit.
Lost classic? Mmmm… perhaps? I’m just glad it exists, really.
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