BSU professor finds a long-missing film shot in Idaho

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 nearby Lookout Mountain in deep snow.

Shipman was one of the first woman filmmakers and an "indie" before the Hollywood studio system stifled such independent American movies until the closing years of the 20th century.

Boise State University English professor Tom Trusky and the American Film Institute have tracked down the film that was missing out of five Shipman shot in Idaho in the mid-1920s. Trusky has also released a new book called "Letters from God's Country," with 1917-1970 correspondence to and from 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 "Wolf's 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 'Wolf's Brush'? It's a mystery."

Such films are ticking time bombs. During the silent era, cellulose nitrate film was used for the majority of films. It is a highly flammable and unstable compound. The decomposition of nitrate film cannot be halted. "Wolf's Brush" will be converted to new, permanent film.

Two new copies will be made for the Idaho Film Collection. The Library of Congress 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 produced a number of silent films and by 1919, had her biggest hit, "Back to God's Country."

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 "Wolf's Brush." The last title is an Indian expression 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 University film professor Kay Armitage wrote in Maclean's, the Canadian weekly magazine.