Live musical accompaniment by Music Box house organist Dennis Scott | Programmed and co-presented by the Chicago Film Society 

Adapted from a play by W. Somerset Maugham, The Canadian stands as an adult anomaly, a stark tale of frontier life and marital discord that incongruously occupied the same Paramount Pictures release slate that was dominated by flapper frivolities like Mantrap and Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em. Thomas Meighan stars as Frank Taylor, a tenant farmer in the wheat fields of Alberta who longs for a wife to help him keep house. Enter Nora (Mona Palma), the cosmopolitan sister of Frank’s employer, Ed Marsh (Wyndham Standing). She’s been to London and Paris, but can’t catch a break on the farm and impulsively decides to marry Frank to escape living under the same roof with Ed’s wife. Alas, no arrangement can be so simple. An intimate and mature human drama photographed on location outside of Calgary by Cecil B. DeMille’s regular cameraman Alvin Wyckoff, The Canadian received a critical reception as chilly as its setting, with many reviewers finding it uneventful and lacking in spectacle. (Motion Picture News described it as ”much better than it sounds”—and that was one of the more positive notices!) But latter-day appraisals have been much kinder, not least from director William Beaudine himself. A busy professional with over 400 credits, Beaudine finally got around to seeing The Canadian some four decades after its release and admitted, “I’m very surprised. Why, I was quite a good director in spots.” 

35mm from Library of Congress | Stills Courtesy of Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive