Jim Bludso

Jim Bludso is a 1917 American drama film directed by Tod Browning. It was Brownings first feature film as a director. Contemporary sources are variable on the matter of whether the direction was a joint effort between Browning and the films star, Wilfred Lucas. In their book Dark Carnival The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywoods Master of the Macabre, David J. Skal and Elias Savada suggest that Lucas name was added to the credit for contractual reasons, and that Browning directed Jim Bludso alone. As Jim Bludso is presumed lost, it is uncertain what the original title card might have read in terms of directorial credit. The film was produced by the Fine Arts unit within the Triangle Film Corporation, the same studio that made the popular Douglas Fairbanks comedies for Triangle, for whom Browning had previously worked as a scenarist.

Jim Bludso was a poem from the Pike County Ballads of John Hay, a familiar set piece in the repertoire of elocutionists, actors and other public speakers the Kalem Company had already made a onereeler out of the same property in 1912. For the film, Browning fashioned his script from both Jim Bludso and another poem, Little Breeches. Much of the films dramatic arc also came from a 1903 stage play adaptation by I.N. Morris. Hays original poem memorialized Jim Bludsos courage and selflessness in sacrificing his own life so that the passengers on his burning boat might survive. For the film, a happy ending was devised and an entirely different set of circumstances led to the demise of Prairie Bell, which Bludso is piloting in Hays poem.

Source: Wikipedia