Winds of Chance from 1925 is a fantastic masterpiece from the silent movie period that still impresses even 90 years after the talkies were introduced.
1897. A year before, gold was found in the Bonanza Creek near Dawson City, Canada, which resulted in the biggest gold rush in history. Thousands of gold seekers went to the Klondike to search for gold. So also the naive Pierce Phillips (Ben Lyon) who, before reaching Dawson City, loses all his money at a shell game. By carrying the pack of another gold seeker, he reaches Dawson, but he has no luck because he is soon accused of theft. This is the moment when the leading lady (Anna Q. Nilsson) appears and comes to the rescue. This is not only the beginning of a romantic drama, but also an adventure full of dangers and complications that can occur when you’re looking for gold.
In addition to the story about Pierce and his beloved Countess, the story of professional gangster Sam Kirby (Hobart Bosworth) and his daughter Rouletta (Viola Dana) is also told. Sam is a household name in the gambling world. Although Rouletta always brings him luck when he’s gambling, their boat, with all their possessions, sinks during the journey through the Inside Passage, a turbulent river. It’s a miracle that Sam and Rouletta survive the accident. We see how the two deal with this dramatic setback.
There is also a part in this film for the always happy Poleon Doret (Victor McLaglen). He does not care about gold, he is just looking for fun. This Poleon, who always dresses in his grandmother's knitted and cheerful colored clothes, is in this film for the comic relief.
Although all these storylines together form a what complicated story, this film is still good to follow. The story is to Rex Beach's book of 1918 with the same title. Beach had himself been a prospector who had tried his luck in the Klondike. As he did not find gold he decided to write stories about the other prospectors. And had success with this. His second book 'The Spoilers' from 1906 became one of the best-selling novels of that year. ‘Winds of Chance’ was already his 14th book about gold rush and you can find that Beach was not tired of the subject yet because it's an excellent story. I did not read the book, but I can imagine that J.G. Hawks, who wrote the scenario for the film, stayed very close to the book.
You can find that Frank Lloyd, who had made 45 shorts and 52 feature films by 1925, already was a very experienced director who knew exactly how to transform a story to the silver screen. And that the previously mentioned actors and actresses also had extensive experience before making this film has undoubtedly contributed to a particularly good end result.
I read in a review on Letterboxd that this movie was almost the same story, but without humor, than that of Chaplin's 'The Gold Rush', made in the same year as 'Winds of Chance'. After seeing 'The Gold Rush' I can tell you that this is total nonsense. 'Winds of Chance' is about searching for gold and love. Although 'The Gold Rush' is also about love, it is mainly about survival in the bad weather conditions in the Klondike. Chaplin does what he is best at; Spinning out a simple story that can easily be summarized in one sentence. The story of 'Winds of Chance' is many times more complicated and profound, and therefore, in my view, more intriguing. The only similarity between the two films is the scene in which we see the gold seekers plow through the snow on their way to Dawson City.
Unfortunately, no complete version of this film has survived, so we need to do it with the version without real 2. You notice that there’s fifteen minutes missing because we do not see Pierce's arrival in Dawson. We see Pierce setting of to Dawson and jump right to the scene where he is accused of theft. This film is a gem that impresses even today.
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