Painter-turned-film-director Maurice Tourneur applies his pioneering talent for expressive lighting and composition to this sensational melodrama about class, morality and social ambition.

Our story begins at ‘Shetland castle… nestled amongst the heather-covered hills of Scotland, where the ancient customs of that region are still scrupulously observed’. Here we meet Lord Angus Cameron, facing financial ruin and desperate to annul his secret marriage to lowly housekeeper Marion. The only proof of their union is a marriage certificate locked in a trunk aboard a sunken yacht: The White Heather.

The hunt is on as Marion, with the help of lovelorn Alec McClintock and the gamekeeper Dick (played by a young John Gilbert, just before he found fame as cinema’s hottest heart-throb besides Valentino!) fights to save her reputation and secure a future for her son. The film’s dramatic climax features groundbreaking underwater sequences that enraptured contemporary reviewers and still thrill today.

Dir. Maurice Tourneur | USA | 1919 N/C PG | b&w, tinted & toned English intertitles | 1h 10m + short

With: Holmes Herbert, Ben Alexander, Ralph Graves, Mabel Ballin, John Gilbert

Performing live: Stephen Horne (piano, accordion, flute)

Online programme notes: Kathy Rose O’Regan

Restored by San Francisco Film Preserve, San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Eye FilmmuseumBox.