Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924 film)

Wanderer of the Wasteland is a 1924 American color silent Western film directed by Irvin Willat and starring Jack Holt, Noah Beery, and Billie Dove. It was the third feature film to be photographed entirely in Technicolor.

Wanderer of the Wasteland
Theatrical release poster, likenesses of Jack Holt and Billie Dove
Directed byIrvin Willat
Produced byLucien Hubbard
Written by
Based onWanderer of the Wasteland
by Zane Grey
Starring
CinematographyArthur Ball
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • June 21, 1924 (1924-06-21) (US)
Running time
60 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Plot

The film is based on Zane Grey's 1923 novel of two brothers, one an honest cowpoke, the other a gambler. When Adam Larey (Jack Holt) confronts his younger brother Guerd (James Mason) about his gambling addiction, the latter is accidentally shot. A distraught Adam, believing he has killed his own brother, flees into the desert. He later learns that Guerd was merely wounded and returns to the loving arms of beautiful Billie Dove.

Cast

Production

Paramount Pictures decided to make a picture entirely in Technicolor (an early version known as Process 2) following the success of the Technicolor sequences in the film The Ten Commandments (1923) and director Irvin Willat's own Heritage of the Desert (1924).[1] Production began on January 24, 1924, and wrapped on March 9. Location shooting for the film included setting up "tent cities" in remote parts of Arizona, Nevada and California, and the production crew worked without being able to watch dailies.[2]

Preservation status

The film is now considered to be a lost film. An original cemented Technicolor print survived into the 1960s in the hands of the film's director, Irvin Willat, who reported in 1971 that the 35 mm nitrate film had decomposed.

After Willat's death, his daughter mentioned that she remembered the day when he discovered that Wanderer of the Wasteland had decomposed. She said he went upstairs to his bedroom, closed the door and cried for three hours. His former wife Billie Dove starred in the picture, and he had never really come to terms with their separation. Dove was lured away from Willat by Howard Hughes.

References
  1. Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1924.
  2. Layton, James and David Pierce. The Dawn of Technicolor: 1915-1935. George Eastman House, 2015, p. 104.


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