Winds of Chance

1925 film

August 16, 1925 (1925-08-16) (U.S. theatrical)

Running time

100 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Winds of Chance is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and produced and released by First National Pictures.^[1]

Plot

As described in a film magazine reviews,^[2] when Pierce Phillips finds he has no money to meet the government’s requirements in seeking gold, he works as a packer of supplies for other adventure seekers. He meets and falls in love with the Countess Courteau. When he asks her to be his wife, he finds she has a husband. He joins a traveling show, one member of which, Laure, has fallen in love with him. She becomes hostile when he pays his attentions to Rouletta, daughter of the gambler. Laure conspires with Count Courteau, who has returned and who now believes that Phillips is his wife’s lover. Phillips then works in the trading post, weighing the gold dust of the miners. He is charged with short-changing Courteau and arrested. The Countess pretends reconciliation with her husband in order to get the proof of Phillips’ innocence and threatens to expose him and have him driven out unless he confesses to the police. On his way to do so he is killed by one of the McCaskeys, who flee across the border. ’Poleon Doret, who has befriended Phillips, pursues with a police officer, and captures one of the brothers, proving Phillips’ innocence of the charge of murder which had been placed against him. ’Poleon and Rouletta, whom he had also befriended, get married, leaving the way open for Phillips and the Countess to follow their example.

Cast

Anna Q. Nilsson as Countess Courteau
Ben Lyon as Pierce Phillips
Lloyd Hughes as Lionel Tressilian
Viola Dana as Rouletta Kirby
Hobart Bosworth as Sam Kirby
Victor McLaglen as Poleon Doret
Dorothy Sebastian as Laura
Claude Gillingwater as Tom Linton
Charles Crockett as Jerry
Larry Fisher as Frank McCaskey
Fred Kohler as Joe McCaskey
Wade Boteler as Jack McCaskey

Preservation

Print of Winds of Chance are located at the UCLA Film and Television Archives, George Eastman House, and National Archives of Canada (at Ottawa).^[3]^[4]

References

^ The AFI Catalog of Feature Films: Winds of Chance
^ "New Pictures: Winds of Chance", Exhibitors Herald, 22 (7), Chicago, Illinois: Exhibitors Herald Company: 65, August 8, 1925, retrieved July 17, 2022 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^ The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog: Winds of Chance
^ Progressive Silent Film List: Winds of Chance at silentera.com