| Barriers of Society | |
| Director: | Lloyd B. Carleton |
| Producer: | Universal Red Feather |
| Screenplay: | Fred Myton |
| Story: | Clarke Irvine |
| Starring: | |
| Cinematography: | Roy H. Klaffki |
| Distributor: | Universal Film Manufacturing Company |
| Runtime: | 50–75 minutes (5 reels) |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English intertitles |
Barriers of Society is a 1916 American silent drama film directed by Lloyd B. Carleton. Universal based the film on the story written by Clarke Irvine and adapted for the screen by Fred Myton. The feature film stars Dorothy Davenport, Emory Johnson, and an all-star cast of Universal contract players.
The son of a poor fish merchant rescues a society girl stranded in the ocean. The boy falls in love, and she forgets about him. Fate brings them together years later when she is a guest aboard a yacht, and he is part of the crew. The yacht's owner has devised a calculated plan to win the woman's love. He plans to fake a ship emergency, eventually stranding the two of them alone on an uncharted island. The strategy backfires when the owner, the girl, and the crew member end up marooned on the island. Both men love the same woman. Intrigues abound, and in the end, the rich girl and the poor sailor realize they love each other. Fate brought them together, and their love overcame the Barriers of Society.
Universal Film Manufacturing Company released the film on October 16, 1916.[1] [2]
Westie Phillips is the son of a poor commercial trawler and his wife. One day while paddling his canoe around the ocean, he finds a pretty girl marooned on a rock. Since the tide is rising, he rescues her and takes her to safety. The young girl turns out to be Martha Gorman, the daughter of the wealthy Silas Gorman. In that instant, Westie falls in love. Martha thanks him and forgets him.
Harry Arnold is a prosperous man, much older than Martha. Harry is also a man in love. He constantly flirts with Martha, hoping to win her hand in marriage. Despite Arnold's persistent entreaties, Martha rebuffs them all. Martha's father, Silas Gorman, is not against such a wedding but will not render an opinion. Silas wants his daughter to make her own marriage choices.
The time occurs for every young man to seek their fortune when they must go out in the world. That day arrives for Westie, and he leaves home to set out in the world. Westie gets shanghaied while seeking employment. He wakes up aboard a ship headed to the Orient. They victimized Westie like most sailors, forceable impressed into service aboard a ship. Somehow, Westie jumps ship and escapes to Honolulu.
Harry Arnold has worked out an insidious plot to win Martha's hand in marriage. First, Arnold invites Martha and her father to go on a cruise aboard his yacht. The thought of partying aboard a ship appeals to both of them, and they accept Arnold's invitation. Once at sea, one of the yacht's crewmen becomes troublesome. Arnold forces the captain to head to port and put him ashore. Once in port, they seek a replacement. They hire a hungry Westie Phillips to replace the sailor. Westie comes on board and recognizes Martha. She does not know who Westie is since the rescue was long ago and long forgotten. After he assumes his duties, he sees Martha repulse lecherous Arnold's advances.Now is the time for Harry Arnold to start the next phase of his plan. Arnold will have the captain of his yacht stage a fake shipwreck near an uncharted island. The crew and partygoers will jump into lifeboats. Arnold will have one lifeboat set in the water with only Martha and himself on board. They will head to the remote island. Arnold feels that by force or otherwise, he can persuade Martha to love and marry him. After a month, the yacht's captain will return and rescue them.
Events unfold, and Westie senses Martha is in peril. Westie catches wind of Arnold's plan. He scrambles to Arnold's lifeboat and asks to go with them. At that exact moment, the captain hits him in the back of the head, knocking him out. Arnold and Martha row their dinghy towards the island. Westie gains his senses and realizes the boat is long gone. He swims to an empty lifeboat and starts paddling toward shore. He hears a woman scream.
After Westie reaches the beach, he discovers Arnold is trying to force himself on Martha. He saves her, and Arnold agrees to behave. Two alpha males and beautiful women agree to make a go of it while awaiting rescue. Arnold is driving himself into a rage after his plan goes awry. He pulls Westie aside and offers him a fortune if he moves to the other side of the island. Westie will not abandon the woman of his dreams. Arnold is beside himself. Later in the evening, Arnold decides if he can't have Martha, then no one will. He tries to murder her. Once again, Westie comes to her relief. An epic battle occurs, and Westie kills Arnold.
Time passes, a rescue ship appears, and the couple flag the ship down. Before their rescue ship arrives, they glance at each other and realize they are in love.
| Actor | Role | |
|---|---|---|
| Dorothy Davenport | Martha Gorham | |
| Emory Johnson | Westie Phillips | |
| Frederick Montague | Silas Gorham | |
| Alfred Allen | John Phillips | |
| Richard Morris | Harry Arnold | |
| Miss Whiting | Mary Phillips | |
In the book, "American Cinema's Transitional Era," the authors point out, One aspect of this transition was the longer duration of films. Feature films were slowly becoming the standard fare for Hollywood producers. Before 1913, you could count the yearly features on two hands. Between 1915 and 1916, the number of feature movies rose two-and-a-half times, from 342 films to 835. There was a recurring claim that Carl Laemmle was the longest-running studio chief resisting the production of feature films.[3] Universal was not ready to downsize its short film business because short films were cheaper, faster, and more profitable to produce than feature films.
Laemmle would continue to buck this trend while slowly increasing his output of features.In 1914, Laemmle published an essay titled - [4] In 1916, Laemmle ran an advertisement extolling Bluebird films while adding the following vocabulary on the top of the ad.Universal made 91 feature films in 1916, including 44 and 47 productions.
This film was labeled with Universal's brand, indicating it was a low-budget feature film.
Lloyd B. Carleton (–1933) started working for Carl Laemmle in the Fall of 1915.[8] Carleton arrived with impeccable credentials, having directed some 60 films for the likes of Thanhouser, Lubin, Fox, and Selig.[9]
Between March and December 1916, 44-year-old Lloyd Carleton directed 16 movies for Universal, starting with The Yaqui and ending with The Morals of Hilda. Emory Johnson acted in all 16 of these films. Of Carleton's total 1916 output, 11 were feature films, and the rest were two-reel shorts.
Carleton was given the task by Carl Laemmle to determine if the Davenport-Johnson duo had the desired on-screen chemistry. In 1916, Carleton directed 13 films pairing Dorothy Davenport and Emory Johnson. This film would be the twelfth film in the thirteen-film series.
After completing this film, Carleton would direct two more films for Universal, then sever his connections.[10]
| Doctor Neighbor | May-1 | L. B. Carleton | Hazel Rogers | Hamilton Powers | Drama | Feature | Lost | ||||||||||
| Her Husband's Faith | May-11 | L. B. Carleton | Mabel Otto | Richard Otto | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| Heartaches | May-18 | L. B. Carleton | Virginia Payne | S Jackson Hunt | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| Two Mothers | Jun-01 | L. B. Carleton | Violetta Andree | 2nd Husband | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| Her Soul's Song | Jun-15 | L. B. Carleton | Mary Salsbury | Paul Chandos | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| The Way of The World | Jul-03 | L. B. Carleton | Beatrice Farley | Walter Croyden | Drama | Feature | Lost | ||||||||||
| No. 16 Martin Street | Jul-13 | L. B. Carleton | Cleo | Jacques Fournier | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| A Yoke of Gold | Aug-14 | L. B. Carleton | Carmen | Jose Garcia | Drama | Feature | Lost | ||||||||||
| The Unattainable | Sep-04 | L. B. Carleton | Bessie Gale | Robert Goodman | Drama | Feature | 1 of 5 reels | ||||||||||
| Black Friday | Sep-18 | L. B. Carleton | Elionor Rossitor | Charles Dalton | Drama | Feature | Lost | ||||||||||
| The Human Gamble | Oct-08 | L. B. Carleton | Flavia Hill | Charles Hill | Drama | Short | Lost | Laemmle | |||||||||
| Barriers of Society | Oct-10 | L. B. Carleton | Martha Gorham | Westie Phillips | Drama | Feature | 1 of 5 reels | ||||||||||
| The Devil's Bondwoman | Nov-11 | L. B. Carleton | Beverly Hope | Mason Van Horton | Drama | Feature | Lost | ||||||||||
The central theme of is the role of fate in the lives of the characters. A movie advertisement in the October 12, 1916 issue of The Seattle Star sums it up this way:A movie tagline unrelated to fate was "A man's millions against a woman's will".
This film was based on a Clarke Irvine play. The movie was adapted for the screen by Frederick Myton (1885-1955). Myton was years old when the movie was released. He would also create the screenplay for the next and last film in the Davenport-Johnson series of films - The Devil's Bondwoman.
The story highlights Harry Arnold's yacht and his manipulative tactics to win Martha's affection. In order to film boat scenes, Lloyd Carleton and his team decided to rent a large steam vessel. The intended trip was to sail 400 nautical miles from Los Angeles to San Francisco. On the ship, they would shoot all the scenes designated in their script to happen on "Arnold's yacht." During the trip, the company could pause in Santa Barbara and its surrounding area to capture island scenes as specified in the movie. The party left Los Angeles in high spirits, with Dorothy Davenport, Emory Johnson, Richard Morris, and other cast members. Their initial jubilation quickly turned into a more somber mood.[11]
After leaving port, the movie company faced strong winds and rough seas on what would become a three-day voyage. With waves crashing all around the boat's constant rocking made it impractical to shoot scenes. Besides everything else, a number of the actors suffered from seasickness. Filming began in earnest after the crew bounced back and the weather calmed down.[12]
On March 15, 1915, Laemmle opened the world's largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios.[13] Any interior shots, not capture on location, would be performed in the studio complex at Universal City.[14]
Published new items indicate this movie was filmed between August and September 1916. This movie was officially released on October 16, 1916.
| Aug 13, 1916 | Director Lloyd Carleton of Universal has commenced the production of a five-reel feature, being made under then working title of "The Road of Destiny."[15] | |
| Sep 09, 1916 | An item published in the September 9, 1916 issue of the Motion Picture News stated – "... are back from a trip to San Francisco, where they made exteriors for the five-reel subject, The Road of Destiny."[16] | |
| Sep 23, 1916 | According to an article in Motography, this movie was completed before September 23, 1916.[17] |
During this film's development, the working title was listed as The Road of Destiny.[16] On September 29, 1916, this film was officially copyrighted as Barriers of Society.
An article published in the March 1917 issue of The Moving Picture Weekly describes the ascendency of a young actress named Roberta Wilson, including her starring role in The item was a misprint. The article meant to say - a featured role in released around the same time as [18]
The copyright was filed with U.S. Copyright Office on September 29, 1916.[19] and entered in the record as shown:
The release date of Monday, October 16, 1916, was cited in several movie magazines.[20] Yet, the film is advertised in various newspapers on Friday, October 6 (Chicago Tribune)[21] and Saturday, October 7 (Brooklyn, New York)[22]
Red Feather Photo Plays were always released on Mondays in 1916.[23] These earlier showings were simply pre-release screenings to large venues.
Advertising plays a vital role in ensuring a movie's success by bringing paying customers to the theater. By providing details about plotlines, actors, release dates, and other key information, a successful marketing campaign boosts excitement among potential stakeholders.This knowledge empowered theater owners to make smarter booking decisions in a competitive market. In addition to an advertising campaign for a movie, Carl Laemmle added another wrinkle to assist potential stakeholders in deciding to view or book a new film.
In 1916, Universal became the first Hollywood studio to classify feature films based on production cost. One of the reasons behind this move was that the Big Five film studios owned their own movie houses, enabling them to have guaranteed outlets for their entertainment products. Unlike the majors, Universal did not own any theaters or theater chains. Branding all Universal-produced feature films would give theater owners another tool to judge the films they were about to lease and help fans decide which movies they wanted to see.
In 1916, Universal produced 91 branded feature films, consisting of 44 and 47 productions. The branding system had a brief existence and, by 1920, had faded away.
The critics generally liked this film.
In the October 14, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World, movie critic Robert C. McElravy points out:[24]
In the October 21, 1916 issue of The Moving Picture World, the staff review:[25]
Lincoln, Nebraska population 18,498[26]
Many silent-era films did not survive for reasons as explained on this Wikipedia page.
In 1978, an extraordinary discovery was made in Dawson City located in Canada's Yukon Territory. The city of Dawson used a large stockpile of silent films to bolster a sagging hockey rink in 1929. The permafrost preserved the films. The film cache was discovered in 1978. The discovery would yield 533 reels of nitrate film containing numerous lost movies. The story was chronicled in the movie - . Among the preserved films in the Dawson Film Find was the 5-reel bluebird production of The Unattainable, released in September 1916. The permafrost also preserved this film. In both cases, only one reel was recoverable from each of the 5 reel feature films. The salvaged reels were donated to the Library of Congress.[27]