Linda
About Linda
Linda’s father forces her to marry Armstrong Decker, an older lumberman. Decker sees she is unhappy and tries to make the house easier. She falls in love with Dr. Paul Randall and stays with her husband until a woman claims to be Decker’s legal wife. Linda goes to the city, lives with a former schoolteacher, and meets Randall again. Decker is hurt in a lumbering accident. She goes back north to nurse him. The other wife is a fraud. She stays until he dies of the injuries. Then she and Randall are free.
Cast & crew
More about Linda
Dorothy Davenport directed it under the name Mrs. Wallace Reid, from Margaret Prescott Montague’s 1912 novel Linda. There is no spoken dialogue. It was released on 31 March 1929 with a synchronized score and sound effects, on both disc and film. It runs 75 minutes, seven reels. Helen Foster is Linda. Warner Baxter is Dr. Paul Randall. Noah Beery is Armstrong Decker. Mitchell Lewis is Buddy Stillwater. Kate Price is Nan. Allen Connor is Kenneth Whitmore. Bess Flowers is Annette Whitmore.
Themes
Making
Davenport keeps the novel’s triangle and adds a synchronized track without turning the scenes into talk. Decker’s death, not a divorce, is what ends the marriage.
Music
No spoken dialogue. A synchronized score and effects were issued both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film.
Preservation
A 75-minute print survives.
Notes
- Billie Brockwell plays the mother, Mrs. Stillwater. Monty O’Grady is Spider.
- The false wife is what lets Linda leave. The accident is what brings her back.
- Davenport’s company is billed Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions. Wikidata also lists Dorothy Davenport Reid Productions.
- A Commons copy carries the 1929 title.
Scenes
- The father hands Linda to Decker.
- A woman claims to be Decker’s first wife, and Linda leaves for the city.
- She comes back when the logging accident hurts him.
- The claim is a fraud. She stays until he dies.
Influenced by
- Linda (Margaret Prescott Montague, 1912)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Linda (1929).webm)