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HomeMy Public PortalAboutMovies: Companies & actorsCouple sets up McCall movie BY PENNY EBERLE For The Star -News Hundreds of local youths and adults crowded into the Evergreen Theater last month, but not to watch the latest movie on the big screen. Instead, these people were there for a casting call with the hopes of one day seeing them- selves up on the big screen. The audition was held by Idaho Films, a newly created Mc- Call based film production com- pany, in order to find people for an upcoming movie, which is scheduled to begin shooting in the McCall area during the McCall Winter Carnival and continue in early Spring. Idaho Films is operated by Johnn and Kristina Wintergate with Johnn's sister, Roni Ros- wood. The Wintergates moved to McCall two years ago from Bur- bank, Calif. There, they had both been involved with the motion picture and entertainment industry for over 20 years, including writ- ing, producing, and acting in movies and commercials. Kristina's acting credits include My Science Project and roles in the television series Night Court. The Wintergates owned Blue Star Films in Los Angeles, and made several films that Johnn de- scribed as "'B'-type adven- ture/horror films." The move to McCall came af- ter the Wintergates and their two children, Kodey, 14 and Chanti, 9, became disenchanted with life in southern California. "It was time to leave the city and move to a better environment," Kristina said. The family wanted to move ei- ther to Hawaii or the mountains, and Kristina chose the mountains for "their spirit." They embarked on a drive through the western U.S. and Canada and arrived in McCall early one morning. The beauty and serenity of the area made them decide to stay. They hand -built their unique home near Jughandle Mountain, and decided that the Valley County area and Idaho in general would be a perfect place for movie -making. "The scenery, lakes, mountains and the charisma that exudes from it make it perfect," Johnn said. "Our dream was to build a house on top of a mountain," Kristina said, "and we wanted to continue our craft." With a script titled "Sally & Jess," specifically written for this area by Johnn, the Wintergates set about making their dreams a real- ity. The screenplay is a family movie production state. They company story about two children whose want the local people to "feel in - parents have died and officials try volved," and with the casting to separate them. The children run away into the hills, where they have to overcome numerous ob- stacles and dangers. The Winter - gate children will have the lead roles in "Sally & Jess." After production, they hope to sell the movie to the Walt Disney studios but if that doesn't work out they will market and distribute the project themselves. With the script in hand, they needed to find talent to fit the project, but found that there was no casting agency in Idaho. So the couple decided to hold auditions and begin their own agency, Idaho Casting. Having dealt with the big - business aspect of movie -making in California, they said they want to keep as much control of their projects as possible. They said that the creativity has gone out of a lot of movies, and that they want to return to make "wonderful little movies." Their dreams also include making Idaho a self-sufficient agency they will have not only actors but eventually Idaho resi- dents as set builders, make-up artists, hairdressers and musicians. The Wintergates have already formed Idaho Soundworks, in conjunction with local musician and composer Jim Cockey. Idaho Soundworks will compose, ar- range and produce all the music for "Sally & Jess." - Thor and Lee Fin-Kelson of McCall are also part of the pro- duction, with Thor as the produc- tion manager and Lee doing the wardrobe and set design. Their son, Andrew, who attends Mc- Call -Donnelly High School, will assist with the musical score. Johnn Wintergate said that he hopes to one day have a sound studio built in McCall so that other musicians and producers will have a local facility in which to work. Johnn and Kristina Wintergate Kay Larson, a McCall busi- nessman and owner of K&L Jew- elry and Gifts, is the public rela- tions officer for Idaho Films. Roni Roswood will be the pro- ducer and Johnn Wintergate will be the director. The camera crew will come from California, but they hope to eventually have a trained local crew. Shooting began the first week- end of Winter Carnival, with some family scenes and skiing shots will also be taken before winter ends. The major shooting is set to begin May 6 and should last about a month, Wintergate said. Photo by Penny Eberle ope to sell their film to Disney. ��c6 cam Shooting of river -running movie shifts to Cascade CASCADE  Area residents will get a taste of the movie -making business next month as the location for filming of a river -running movie "Same River Twice," shifts to Cascade and the North Fork of the Payette River. And, it will undoubtedly have a significant affect on local businesses as production of the fictional feature film will fill motel and hotel rooms in Cascade for a three-week period from about July 15 to Aug. 9. Lynn Christofferson, the production accoun- tant for the film, said Tuesday morning that he expects a crew of 60 or so to be in Cascade when shooting on the film begins in July. The cast features 13 actors, he said, who are from Hollywood and Salt Lake City. The crew is filming this week on the Lochsa River in north -central Idaho, he said, and will conclude their shooting there by the end of this week. Lorien Productions and Vineyard Productions, both of Utah, are producing the film, which Christofferson described as a low -budget film. Distribution of the movie hasn't been final- SOON TO BE FILMING "Same River Twice" ized yet, but he said it could be released to the- aters or go straight into the video market. He said the story centers on a group of friends, who challenge a river as young peo- ple, only to lose one of the group members to drowning. Years later, he said the group then decides to confront that past tragedy and chal- lenge the same river again. A number of the crew taking part in the filming are stunt people who are doing the really serious river running for the actors, he said. The film is directed by Scott Featherstone, and the producer is Jeff Miller, whom Christofferson said has been involved in film- ing IMAX movies for much of his career. However, he said Miller has also produced a number of other low -budget films for the video market. Shooting .has been going on for a couple of weeks, and Christofferson said the logistics of shooting a film based on a natural resource like a river are difficult at times. "Anytime you work on something that's as unpredictable as a river, you have challenges," he said. After concluding their shooting on the Lochsa, he said the company will head home for a couple of weeks and then re -group in Cascade for more filming on the North Fork. c? 7 o-'' 4/ 1'40.4 , Thc5 /6.ra 41 Spat2s /27a17 The perils of Nell. Nell Shipman posed knee-dee in Idaho's Priest Lake for one of her silent films.; Photo by Joseph Walker, courtesy of Barry Shipman braved Idaho for stardom By JUDY MCCONNELL STEELE The Idaho Statesman The professor was looking through old files, sure he knew everything about Idaho's film history. Until he pulled out a plain free on the•sets, high living and poignant poverty. Tom Trusky, a Boise State University English professor, had uncovered the world of Nell Shipman, silent screen star, writer and director and owner of her own studio on Priest Lake in the Idaho Panhandle. and dusty manila folder. The university will celebrate He opened it, and before him lay a Shipman's rediscovery Thursday world of silent films made in through Saturday with a silent film shimmering Idaho forests and icy wastelands, leading men dying of frozen lungs, fierce dogs poisoned for revenge, night scenes shot by torchlight, wild animals roaming festival, the publication of her gntty attachment to the outdoor`her last full length film, and film a she rose to popularity in silent fil'series of two-reelers. Her movies, many written and But The Grub Stake was a directed by the star, featured a tough but tender girl surroundedfinancial disaster. Her Idaho films adoring wild animals in fierce were unable to sustain the company settings. The public watched avkshe founded. Her world began to and demanded more. crumble, a victim of bad luck, bad It was 1922. Charlie Chaplin ha finances and, Shipman claimed, ba• just ma a The Kid and would socediting. stdrt. The Gold Rus She left Lionhead Lodge early in in his studio in forrt19259 never to return. The studio isintegrated. The films were lost o orange grove now called<iturned to explosive jelly in their autobiography and workshops by Hollywood. raps. Nell Shipman died and, i Shipman's family and friends. Nell decided to take her film cre. seemed, was forgotten. it Nell's journey to fame and Idaho and zoo of 70 wild animals to the Until , w s f opened the dust - began on the vaudeville stages. But northern reaches h Idaho. take, throu • h talent � ood looks and a she would finish The Grub Stake, / e s=/(:)sfi7cle e7 folder and discovered three articles she had written for Atlantic Monthly about a winter at Priest Lake. "If we could get any backing at all we had a wonderful opportunity for making nature pictures in this glorious setting," she wrote. "If not, we might as well sink with the ship. Winter was coming." Her words lit a fire in the professor. "I was fascinated by her. I knew of no silent films made in Idaho," says Trusky, a Boise State University English professor. "It ate away at me." His search to find her films became an obsession. The woman he uncovered behind the films also was obsessed: She was driven to be an actress. "The Picture! Anything, everything, for the Picture!" she wrote in The Silent Screen & My Talking Heart, her autobiography BSU recently published. Her drive to perform was nurtured in the years before silent movies were even a possibility. Born in 1892, she had almost no training when she brazenly sang and danced her way through an audition and became, in her words, "a shabby, little tramp of a backwood's trouper in a one -night -stand company." She learned to tough her way through bad performances. She kept quiet in letters home about hotels that provided a "public John at the end of an icy hall, ... hard, thin mattresses on springs like weary hammocks, worn booze -and - pee -stained carpets, windows no one could open ... " She was miserable, but she didn't care. She was an actress. ; abrief nude scene, one of the -first Somewhere on the road, she was :©n film. It also used two Shipman introduced to the movies, They ;.q pademarks that were important. fascinated her.-.ttentributions to the industry — "I watched the moving pictures >^"ktcation shooting and the humane as the scurrying images penetrated �fxeatment of wild animals. the flimsy, wrinkled, askew curtain - ---: Back to God's Country, the Tricks! Magic! Tables and chairs n tory of Dolores LeBeau and her walking unaided down streets ... " 'faithful dog Wapi, was shot in a She wanted to be a part of it all.:;:tanada and several locations in Before long, her face was lighting up the screen. Propelled by her promoter -hus- band, Ernest Shipman, and her own fierce ambition, she became "the sweetheart of the critters," as Trusky calls her for her film work with animals. • In 1915, she won the female lead in God's Country and the Woman. She was hired not for her acting ability, but her athletic prowess. "I was to drive a• team of sled - dogs, paddle a canoe, travel on - showshoes ..." she wrote in her autobiography. t Her wilderness adventures pro- vided the ticket for her next movie, Back To God's Country, a ffienomenonally successful film th4t netted its backers a 300-per- -ent return on their investment. -4The film showed Shipman in a California. ; The Canada shoot, with tem- fperatures diving to 40-below, was ,:..brutal. The leading man, a mis- allaced macho Aussie, died after oolishly trying some outdoor calisthenics. Burt Van Tuyle, the ifissistant director who became �4iell's lover, suffered frostbitten w feet. Nell loved the untamed setting and the wild creatures in the film. She discovered they were drawn to her as well. During one day's shoot, Nell mistook Tresore, a Great Dane trained to attack, for his docile brother. "Everyone started whispering, `Get away from the dog,' " Trusky recounts. She realized her mistake, but told the director to let her do the scene with her quiet killer. When she walked off the set, Tresore went for the director's throat. "Nell took that as a sign that she was to work with animals," Trusky says. She wrote her next two pic- tures, The Girl From God's Coun- try and The Grub Stake, to in- clude her animals. And she set parts of The Grub Stake in the Idaho wilderness which she had come to love. "Did you ever come to a place and instantly recognize it as your Ultima Thule, the one spot in all God's world where you belonged. ... such a spot, so it seemed to me, was Priest Lake, in Idaho." So it was, at least for a while. Divorced and accompanied by Van Tuyle and her son, Barry, Nell arrived at Priest Lake like a queen. Her court included a crew of young men and women hoping to work on another hit and tour- ists excited to see the movie star. Nell sailed up Priest River on a barge full of cages that housed everything from elk to eagles, bobcats, deer, bears, skunks, even mice. The menagerie first settled into a lodge owned by Sam Byars, a villain in Shipman's book. When Byars discovered his high -living stars were going to homestead across the river after the spring thaw, he began charging them three times the rent. Nell found a !oval boatman who literally "crunched through the ice," Trusky says, to move them across the lake early. They left owing Byars money, but the inn- keeper took revenge. A spectacular Fourth of July barbecue Nell threw for the lake residents ended with the star find- ing her beloved dog Tresore dead by poison. No one was caught, but everyone said it was Byars. The Girl From God's Country was not the blockbuster Nell had planned. But she and Van Tuyle still had money coming in from Back to God's Country. The Grub Stake, with its prophetic title, would surely pull Nell's produc- tion company out of debt. It didn't. Signed for distribution by a company that went back- rupt, it sank like a stone in Priest Lake. Nell sold off many of her family belongings to pay bills and buy food for her animals. Still, like the movie heroine she had become, Nell didn't lose heart. She bought more film, planned more movies. This time, she would makea series of two -reel films called Little Dramas. of the . LP /air- C2:-/"d��jt77ae. ,?7 Big Places. No matter that most of her crew had disappeared. Nell would use local folks as actors. With them, she completed four Little Dramas and started a fifth. The cook and other help left. But Nell seemed to relish the idea of taking on the rough tasks that would keep her animals and film studio alive. "There were no neatly pack- aged dog foods then," she wrote. "First we emptied one -hundred pound sacks (of flour) into the trough, added water toted from the lake, then dived in to our arm- pits to churn the mixture." Nell also had to take care of Van Tuyle. His frostbite, incurred during the Canada shoot, was get- ting worse. The painful toes, one down to raw bone, wouldn't allow him to sleep. One morning, he snapped. He set out with a dog sled, cursing Nell for following him. But her quick thinking and expertise with the sled saved him. "Sometimes I guided the sled along the ice cakes at the lake's edge; again we ploughed through waist -deep snow.... Then a great rock would loom up in front of us, jutting out into the lake and forc- ing a detour into the timber, where the long sled would be- come tangled in the small growth and brush ... " The two-day trip by sled and then boat ended with Van Tuyle safe in a hospital. His frostbitten Apes were amputated and he re- turned to Lionhead. But Nell's troubles were not over. Bills were still mounting; creditors were getting tired of waiting. The pressure was wear- ing the Lionhead lodgers down. On Christmas Day, 1924, Van Tuyle flew into a jealous rage watching Nell dance with an extra. He threatened her with a rifle. Nell walked out of the lodge and headed for the lake, determined to drown herself. She was stopped by her sobbing son. The end had come. The movie crews were gone, the animals were thin and cold. Nell left Van Tuyle in Spokane and went to New York to beg funds for her next film, The Purple Trail. She never returned to Lionhead Lodge. Charges of starving her ani- mals, which Nell vehemently denied, dried up her funding. The animals were turned over to the San Diego Zoo. Nell went to Spain with Charles Ayers, an artist she renamed Carlos de Corveda. In 1926, he fathered her twins, Daphne and Charles. Nell continued to write screen- plays, as well as novels and short stories. And bad luck continued to follow her. The filming of her screenplay Abandoned Trails in 1928 stopped abruptly when the star collapsed. Will Rogers, signed to star in her film Hot Oil, died in a plane crash. In 1935, her screenplay Wings in the Dark was filmed with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. It was her last moment with the silver screen. Nell Shipman spent her last years in Cabazon, Calif. She died there in 1970, one year after com- pleting her autobiography. Tom Trusky, Boise State University English profes- sor, uncovered the Nell Shipman story while re- searching films made in Idaho. lCl<<t°o :. r6 G • -, • ',i7 J-� / / S Shipman's book is a true find By Sarah Davis 'Special to The Idaho Statesman Nell Shipman, silent movie star, had a life that was a banquet of wild experiences; but it was cer- tainly no picnic. 'Always short of money as a in - pendent film producer/writer/director, she struggled to establish a movie 5tiydio on the wild shores of Priest <t~ake — complete with a menag- k* of over 70 wild animals that : 'were the real stars of her 'back to ' �ture' flicker fantasies. Accom- r pied by her manager/boy- Ittend, a small movie crew, and direr young son, Barry, she faced a vation and sometimes starva- dp. The long winters at Lionhead ; 44641ge proved to be their neme- : pdti. To reveal more would spoil ; #)a surprise; Nell's autobiogra- ' has a real 'sockeroo' ending. like a good movie, her 4100 made me laugh until it hurt. le.�ealso brings tears — it's a three -handkerchief" melodrama 1n4ite finest tradition. R,.;;Shipman writes in a rambling 4yle that defies a literary defini- b0. It's more like getting lost in t` tiuge museum. You can't find your way out of the labyrinth of her memories, but the trip through the history of early movie -making is so delightful the lack of logical sequence doesn't matter. r Those early movi8-makers must have been hearty (and fool- hardy) types. NO, did most of her Book review stunts. Somehow the silent hero- ine always ended up in the water. She writes of her near-drownings, mentioning that her look of hor- ror, captured on celluloid, was no fake. The cinematographers were the real heroes in her estimation. "Without a Joseph Walker on the backside of a movie camera you are just about as ordinary as a turnip ... I wonder if there is any question in the minds of all people dedicated to Blunderland as to who ... the real magicians havf been? They made us." Cdnsidering that film had to be hand edited and spliced with razor blades and that the camera often had a lense "like the bottom of a beer bottle," the production of a silent movie was a small miracle. "The Picture! Only the Picture must count!" she writes of being in Canada to film Back To God's Country. Here, she received word of her father's death. There was no time to halt production and at- tend the funeral. She stops the story with a flash back to memo- ries of Dad. During her childhood in Seattle he taught her "to follow trails, tjimb trees, keep a campfire burning safely, sleep on pine - boughs, handle a horse, a gun, a Shipman films' collection leads to festival of movies Five years ago, one Nell Shipman film was known to exist. Now Boise State Univer- sity owns five. Tom Trusky, BSU English professor turned film sleuth, sent letters to film archives, private collectors, historical societies, museums and librar- ies asking if any of them had Shipman films. At the time wnly Back to God's Country was known to have survived. Trusky as- sumed that the rest, all made on volatile and delicate silver nitrate film, had "gone to Hol- lywood Heaven." But the letters turned up sur- prises. Trusky eventually uncovered A Bear, A Boy and a Dog, Trail of the Northwind, The Light on Lookout and The Grub Stake. He also discovered Shipman wrote an autobiography, The Silent Screen & My Talking Heart, which BSU just pub- lished. The Grub Stake was the last find, tracked down Only last summer. Acting on a hunch that a woman who wrote to Ship- man's son 10 years ago might have information on the film, Trusky wrote to her care of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. "She wrote back saying the British Film Institute had a copy of The Grub Stake," Trusky says. "I went crazy.,I instantly went to the phone." Members of the Institute in- sisted, as they had before, that they had no such film. Trusky said, "Yes, you do." So they looked again, and, halyard! God bless your humor and your innate and aristocratic sense of equality!" Good preparation for her Priest Lake experiences. The adventure began because of a lost dispute with Louie B. Mayer over distri- bution rights for one of her films; she saw a future of doors slam- ming shut. "I packed my toys and moved north." Barry Shipman can take credit for convincing his mother to write her memoirs. "I have better things to write about than me," she protested. "If you write your own story you will not only be the Author, you'll be the Star!" was his reply. The actress could not resist the one last chance to be center stage. She finished the first segment of her autobiography at age 76, but died before the whole story could be told. The sequel awaits another script writer, for this book concludes in her early thirties. Barry, in his afterword, terms this incompleteness a "literary loss." The Silent Screen & My Talking Heart by Nell Shipman (Hemingway Western Studies Series — Boise State University, $12.95) found, "My goodness, we do have a negative of that film," Trusky recounts. "It had been sort of misfiled." The public will get the bene- fit of Trusky's detective work this coming week. The follow- ing is a partial list of events to be held during the Nell Ship- man Silent Film Festival. Complete schedules are available at the The Book Shop and at BSU at the Hemingway Western Studies Center, the li- brary and the visitor's center. ■ 'Women in Film," key- note address by Mollie Greg- ory, Los Angeles screenwriter and novelist, 8 p.m., Thursday, auditorium of the BSU Hem- ingway Western Studies Cen- ter. ■ "Making Lassie Bark & Trigger Trot: The Training & Treatment of Animals," with Birds -of -Prey expert Morlan Nelson and actress Nina Ship- man, Nell Shipman's grand- daughter, 1 p.m., Friday, BSU Hemingway Center auditori- um. ■ Silent Film Festival, with Phantom of the Opera, The Ten Commandments, The Freshman, The Scarlet Letter, The Lodger and Back to God's Country, Friday and Saturday, BSU Hemingway Center audi- torium. ■ Lost Horizon, Idaho pre- miere of restored Frank Capra classic, today through Satur- day, The Flicks, 646 Fulton. ii"Retrieval, Restoration, and Evaluation of Early Films, From Hollywood to Home Movies," symposium, 9:30 a.m., Saturday, Gallery 2, Room 204, Hemingway Center. /y 1.2/,2111co.3 Lost, then found: an Idaho film by Nell Shipman By Dan Gallagher The Associated Press BOISE — In the flickering light of her silent melodramas, Nell Shipman races by dogsled across frozen Priest Lake. She shoots rapids and scales the slopes of near- by Lookout Mountain in deep snow. Shipman was one of the first female film- makers and an "indie" before the Holly- wood studio system stifled such indepen- dent American movies until the closing years of the 20th century. Boise State University English professor Tom Trusky and the American Film Insti- tute have tracked down the missing film out of the five Shipman shot in Idaho in the mid-1920s. Trusky also has released a new book, "Letters from God's Country," with 1917-1970 correspondence to and from the then -scandalous Shipman, who has become the toast of Canadian film buffs. "Her life was her own cliffhanger," he said. "She was an independent. When you say `indie' now, Robert Redford and the Sundance Film Festival come to mind." Trusky has spent years doing detective work on the Internet and through tips to track down Shipman's silent films for the Idaho Film Collection at Boise State. He and American Film Institute Curator Kim Tomadjoglou have just acquired "Wolfs Brush" from an English family. "It's the last, lost, made -in -Idaho Nell Shipman film," said Trusky, who has not seen the movie yet. "Who knows what we'll see in `Wolfs Brush.' It's a mystery." Such films are ticking time bombs. Dur- ing the silent era, cellulose nitrate film was used for the majority of movies. It is a high- ly flammable and unstable compound; the decomposition of nitrate film cannot be halted. "Wolfs Brush" will be converted to new, permanent film. Two new copies will be made for the Ida- ho Film Collection. The Library of Con- gress keeps the original for its archives and can make other copies. Shipman was born in Victoria, B.C., in 1892. She moved to Seattle at age 12 but left for a vaudeville career a year later. She pro- duced a number of silent films and by 1919 had her biggest hit, "Back to God's Coun- try." During the 1920s, Shipman shot her Priest Lake films, including "The Grub -Stake," "Trail of the North Wind," "The Light on the Lookout," "White Water" and "Wolfs Brush." The last title is an Indian expres- sion for the wisps of cirrus clouds colored like fire by the sunrise or sunset, Trusky said. All of Shipman's films portray a strong woman who "protected her man, defeated the villain and generally saved the day, all the while looking good," Toronto Univer- sity film professor Kay Armitage wrote in Maclean's, a Canadian weekly magazine. In "The Grub -Stake," Shipman plays Faith Diggs, who is caring for her invalid father. She meets Alaskan gambler Mark Leroy, who entices her to the Klondike. But Faith finds out Leroy is married to a dance hall girl. Faith and her father flee into the wilder- ness, where she encounters friendly wild animals. She ultimately fmds romance; Mark Leroy, fittingly, dies in a fall. "Women are the heroes of the story," Trusky said. "Her films are autobiograph- ical. She's the proto-suffragette or femi- nist." Nell Ship- man poses with her star dog, a great Dane named Tre- sore, in "Back to God's Country," her biggest hit. Statesman file photo arte3 w j2%2/a003 Shipman also believed in shooting on lo- cation. To film "Back to God's Country," Ship- man took her crew to Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. Her leading man con- tracted pneumonia and later died. Com- pany manager Bert Van Tuyle froze his right foot, which was amputated. "She didn't believe in pouring soap flakes over the actors so it looks like the brutal winter conditions," Trusky said. In the same film, her character bathes in a mountain pool, and Shipman donned a flesh -colored wool bathing suit. But it got wet and wrinkled, so Shipman peeled it off, but kept the camera running. She later boasted she had appeared nude on film be- fore actress Hedy Lamarr bared it all in "Ecstasy" in 1933. Trusky said it took dog sleds to carry all the heavy cameras to Priest Lake in the win- ter; a mule train did the job in summer. "She definitely was a woman film pio- neer," Tomadjoglou said. "She made very physical movies in terms of the action. Melodramas were usually staged indoors, not typically shot outdoors." Animals played important roles in Ship- man's outdoor melodramas. "There were deer, dogs, skunks, eagles, bears," Trusky said. "The dog carries the message. The bear scares off the bad guys." Shipman treated all the animals as pets. At one point, they made up the largest pri- vately owned collection of wild animals in the United States. Shipman had four love affairs over the years, some overlapping, according to re- ports. Like other artists of her time, Nell moved to the 1920 hot spots of Spain, Cuba, Florida, Greenwich Village and Taos, N.M. Her golden years in cinematography started to wane as the industry evolved. "She does it all: write, act, edit, direct and produce," Trusky said. `But the whole mod- el of Hollywood was changing to a studio system with everything centralized. Inde- pendents were an endangered species." Shipman's career started to go downhill. She sold "The Grub -Stake" to a distribu- tor, who quickly went bankrupt. She re- ceived no money and was unable to recover the film. She gave her animals to the San Diego Zoo. Shipman eventually moved to a California "dude ranch for dogs," where she cared for canine actors such as Rin Tin Tin while their owners were on vacation. She died broke and alone in 1970. ssociated Boise State University English professor Tom Trusky and the AMatt / mer cyan Film Institutess have tracked down Nell Shipman's missing film. It was one out of five that Shipman shot in Idaho in the mid-1920s. Trusky also has released a new book called "Letters from God's Country," with 1917-1970 correspondence to and from the then -scan- dalous Shipman, who has become the toast of Canadian film buffs. July's recital will feature Robyn Wells, a well-known con- cert pianist from Meridian. Alpine Playhouse to screen 1923 silent film June 8 The Alpine Playhouse will present a screening of the 1923 silent film "The Grub Stake" on Friday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will be $5 and the proceeds will benefit the Alpine Playhouse, which is operated by a nonprofit group. Tickets will be available at the door for the benefit, which will be presented with assistance from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. "The Grub Stake" stars Nell Shipman, who also wrote and co -directed the film. Much of the footage was shot at Shipman's Lionhead Lodge in Priest Lake. Other footage was shot in the Spokane area. The film, which Shipman con- sidered her masterpiece, was long thought lost. A restored version from the Idaho Film Collection's new Shipman retrospective will be shown. The restored version has only been screened once previously, at Moscow's Kenworthy Theater last November. Tom Trusky, director of the Idaho Film Collection and expert on Shipman's work, will be on hand to give an introductory talk, and also will be available for a question and answer session following the screening. Photo courtesy Idaho Film Collection A scene from Nell Shipman's 1923 silent film "The Grub Stake" to be shown June 8 at the Alpine Playhouse. PAGE B-4 - THE STAR -NEWS - THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007 Photo courtesy Idaho Film Collection Nell Shipman starred, wrote, and co -directed the 1923 silent film "The Grub Stake," to be shown Friday at the Alpine Playhouse. Alpine Playhouse to screen 1923 silent film The Alpine Playhouse will present a screening of the 1923 silent film "The Grub Stake" on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will be $5 and the proceeds will benefit the Alpine Playhouse, which is operated by a nonprofit group. Tickets will be available at the door for the benefit, which will be presented with assistance from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. "The Grub Stake" stars Nell Shipman, who also wrote and co -directed the film. Much of the footage was shot at Shipman's Lionhead Lodge in Priest Lake. Other footage was shot in the Spokane area. The film, which Shipman con- sidered her masterpiece, was long thought lost. A restored version from the Idaho Film Collection's new Shipman retrospective will be shown. The restored version has only been screened once previously, at Moscow's Kenworthy Theater last November. Tom Trusky, director of the Idaho Film Col- lection and expert on Shipman's work, will be on hand to give an introductory talk, and also will be available for a question and answer session following the screening. "The Grub Stake" could be described as melodrama on an epic scale. By turns poignant, suspenseful and occasionally comic, "The Grub Stake" uses the backdrop of gold rush Alaska as a setting for its heroine, Faith Diggs, to fight against the forces of greed and lust, encapsulated in the film's villain, Mark Leroy. Along the way, she's aided by a dipsomaniac prospector, a hard-boiled "he -woman," a young artist, a ghost dog and of course, as in many Shipman films, a bevy of bears. The film will be presented with a live score performed by the Bijou Orchestrette, which is the duo of Indian Valley's Eberle Umbach and John Hayes. Trusky commissioned the Bijou Orchestrette to compose "The Grub Stake" score for the Idaho Film Collection's Shipman retrospective with assistance from the Idaho Commission on the Arts. Although there are only two musicians, this "orchestrette" contains lots of instruments (18 for "The Grub Stake", counting percussion). These include the marimba, flute, melodica, guitar, and plectrum banjo, as well as un- usual items like the slide whistle, toy piano, zither and kazoo. The score combines elements of ragtime and early jazz with more contemporary styles. The Alpine Playhouse hosted the Bijou Orchestrette and Trusky for a screening of the Shipman film, "Back to God's Country" in 2005.