The Bondman

The Bondman (1916)

The narrative hinges on Jason's vow to wreak vengeance on his father for abandoning his mother. But his father dies, and Jason turns his desire for revenge against Sunlocks, his father's son of another wife. Both Sunlocks and Jason are in love with Greeba, daughter of the governor of the Isle of Man. Sunlocks and Jason go to Iceland, and are confined in prison. Jason not knowing Sunlocks, saves his half-brother from death in the mines. Jason is freed, but Sunlocks is condemned to death. Greeba pleads for Sunlocks' life, and Jason sacrifices himself by taking Sunlocks' place and dying for him. -- Wikipedia

Date of release
1916-03-20
Runtime
1h 0m
Genres
Drama
Director
Edgar Lewis

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Bondman

The Bondman is an American silent film directed by Edgar Lewis and starring William Farnum, L. O. Hart and Dorothy Bernard. The film is an adaptation of Hall Caine's 1890 novel The Bondman.

Production

Produced by the Fox Film Corporation The Bondman was the first film they released under their De Luxe brand. Shooting was done in Maine, on Long Island and in New Jersey. Dorothy Bernard's role as Greba was the biggest that she had up to that point in her career.

During the making of The Bondman William Farnum sustained many narrow escapes from injury. In filming the story he was shown at work as a convict in the sulphur mines where prison guards forced him to drive his pick into a thin crust of volcanic earth resulting in flames and smoke shooting up into the air. The scene was created by using many smoke pots. Farnum as Red Jason made his escape.

The 1828 schooner Signal was wrecked in the scene in which Red Jason is wrecked on the rocky coast of the Isle of Man.

Austrian born Max Steiner was a child prodigy, studying composition with Mahler and composing music performed by the Vienna Philharmonic. After travelling to America seventeen year old Steiner became Fox Film's musical director in 1915. At the time there was no specially written music for films and Steiner told William Fox his idea to write an original score for The Bondman.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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