The Copperhead

The Copperhead
	Newspaper advertisement
Directed by	Charles Maigne
Produced by	Adolph Zukor; Jesse Lasky
Written by	Augustus Thomas (play); Charles Maigne (scenario)
Based on	The Glory of His Country; by Frederick Landis
Starring	Lionel Barrymore; Doris Rankin
Cinematography	Faxon M. Dean
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	January 25, 1920;
Running time	7 reels; 6,351 feet
Country	United States
Language	Silent (English intertitles)

The Copperhead is a 1920 American silent film historical drama based on a novel by Frederick Landis and a 1918 play by Augustus Thomas. The star of this film is Lionel Barrymore who won acclaim in the play version on Broadway, and who appeared in the play and this film with his first wife Doris Rankin.[1][2][3] A print of this film has been screened in recent years.

1920 print advertisement for film

Plot

At the beginning of the American Civil War Milt Shanks, who owns a farm in Illinois, is asked by President Abraham Lincoln to join the Copperheads, a clandestine quasi-political organization whose sentiments lie with the South. His family and friends unknowing of his mission call him a traitor.

His son later dies in a Civil War battle and his wife dies of heartbreak over the son's death. Shanks spends decades keeping silent about his involvement with the Copperheads until his granddaughter prepares to marry and he's forced to come clean about being involved in a secret Civil War Mission. With this understanding friends and family forgive him.

Cast

Lionel Barrymore as Milt Shanks
William P. Carleton as Lt. Tom Hardy
Francis Joyner as Newt Gillespie (billed as Frank Joyner)
Richard Carlyle as Lem Tollard
Arthur Rankin as Joey
Leslie Stowe as Brother Andrew
Nicholas Schroell as Abraham Lincoln
William David as Tom Hardy
Harry Bartlett as Dr. James
Jack Ridgeway as Theodore Roosevelt
Mayor N.M. Cartmell as Captain Mercer
Doris Rankin as Mrs. Shanks
Carolyn Lee as Grandma Perley
Anne Cornwall as Madeline
Francis Haldorn as Elsie

Preservation

The film survives. It is available on DVD from at least one online source.[4]

gollark: It might be able to run on less than a megabyte, I haven't tested it.

gollark: (before you complain, GHC allocates something like a tibibyte at startup)

gollark: CC doesn't limit RAM, but probably a few terabytes is enough.

gollark: They don't actually emulate them very in-depthly, or at all beyond a maybe limited-size filesystem mounted at `/disk` or `/diskX`.

gollark: The emulators emulate them fine.

References

Progressive Silent Film List: The Copperhead at silentera.com
The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1911-20 by The American Film Institute, c.1988
The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The Copperhead
The Copperhead available for DVD purchase online

External links

The Copperhead on IMDb
The Copperhead synopsis at AllMovie
lantern slide/coming attraction; "The Copperhead" w/Lionel Barrymore
from Italian-Wikipedia, Lionel Barrymore in the 1918 play The Copperhead

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[1] Progressive Silent Film List: The Copperhead at silentera.com

[2] The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Films: 1911-20 by The American Film Institute, c.1988

[3] The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The Copperhead

[4] The Copperhead available for DVD purchase online