The Risky Road 106 years old

The Risky Road

Ida May Park started in the film business as a scriptwriter, but in 1917 Universal announced that Park would direct films with actress and producer Dorothy Phillips for the company’s Bluebird brand. Park’s films often had a strong female perspective and The Risky Road is no exception. The story of a country girl who comes to the city to work, but falls for a rich man and undeservedly gets a bad reputation, the film was marketed as “the drama every woman should see”. The surviving fragment, showing the despair of Phillips’s character, is a real cinematic gem that leaves one yearning for more material of the film to be discovered. In 2008, a tinted nitrate fragment, with Swedish intertitles at the opening of the second reel, was deposited at the Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet. From the fragment, a 35mm B&W duplicate negative was made, from which this print was struck using the tinting of the nitrate as color reference.

Credits

The Risky Road Cast

Name Character
Claire Du Brey She was 25, 100 years old when she died
Joseph W. Girard He was 46, 78 years old when he died
Juanita Hansen She was 22, 66 years old when she died
Edward Cecil He was 39, 62 years old when he died
George Chesebro He was 29, 70 years old when he died

The Risky Road Crew

Name Department
Ida May Park as Director. She was 38 (74) years old when She died Directing
Ida May Park as Writer. She was 38 (74) years old when She died Writing
The Risky Road poster
The Risky Road (106 years)

  • Release day: Monday, April 08, 1918
  • Runtime: 50 minutes