The Place Beyond the Winds is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Joe De Grasse, and starring Lon Chaney, Gretchen Lederer and Dorothy Phillips. It was written by Ida May Park, based on the novel by Harriet T. Comstock. The director De Grasse also played a role in the film. The film's original working title was Mansion of Despair. A still exists showing Chaney in the role of Jerry Jo, the homeless man.
Four of the five reels (reels 2, 3, 4 and 5) still survive in the film archive in the Library of Congress and in the National Archives of Canada. The incomplete print was found in Dawson City, Canada in 1978, along with an incomplete print of another 1916 Chaney film called If My Country Should Call.
Film historian Jon C. Mirsalis explains: "THE PLACE BEYOND THE WINDS was the last of three pictures Chaney made for the Red Feather production company, and through one of the most bizarre episodes in film preservation history, two of these three films exist in partial form. In 1978, excavation had begun for a new recreation center for Dawson City. A bulldozer dug into the earth and came up with a shovelful of reels of nitrate film. Dawson City had been the end of the line for many film distributors, and the titles were stored at the local library until 1929 when the flammable nitrate was used as landfill in a condemned swimming pool and promptly forgotten. Stored for 50 years under the Yukon permafrost, the films were surprisingly well preserved, although sadly, many reels that had survived the years unscathed were damaged in thawing and show water marking on the edges. Also included in this amazing treasure trove were films by Pearl White, Harold Lloyd, and Douglas Fairbanks....".
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
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