Wild Oranges
Encyclopedia
Wild Oranges is a 1924
silent
drama film
directed by King Vidor
. On January 12, 2010 the film had its first home video release, on the Warner Archive DVD series.
Disillusioned, John adopts a reclusive life on the sea, sailing along the Atlantic coast in his schooner
Yankee, accompanied only by his ship's mate, Paul Halvard.
One afternoon the men steer the Yankee across a bar into an inlet along the Georgia
coast. The approach of John's schooner is watched disapprovingly by two men —Litchfield Stope, master of the once-grand house that sits on the inlet, who developed a lifelong distrust of strangers during the American Civil War
, and Nicholas, a maniacal brutish man who has bullied his way into Stope's household. At the same time, John is standing on the deck of his boat and surveying the shore through a pair of binoculars
. Woolfolk notices the once-grand house. He also spies a young woman swimming near the shore – Millie Stope, Litchfield's granddaughter.
After anchoring the Yankee, John takes a rowboat ashore. As he makes his way toward the Stope's house, he picks a couple of wild orange
s off a tree. Millie comes out of the house and asks, "What do you want?"
"I came ashore to arrange for a supply of water – but I've stolen your oranges," John replies.
"We have plenty of both ... help yourself," Millie responds as she takes John around the house to show him where the water tank is located.
Nicholas secretly watches the interaction between Millie and John and he sees Millie pick four oranges and put them in the pockets of John's blazer. After John returns to his boat, though, he takes the oranges out of his pockets and throws them into the water.
The next morning, Millie walks down to the shore carrying a fishing pole. Nicholas intercepts her and demands that she give him a kiss. Millie screams and attempts to run, but Nicholas grabs her and threatens to put her in the swamp
if she doesn't kiss him. Millie still refuses, so Nicholas carries her into the swamp and puts her atop a cypress
root sticking out of the water. Nicholas moves to the edge of the swamp and laughingly taunts Millie as a couple of alligator
s menacingly rise from the water. Terrified, Millie agrees to give Nicholas a kiss if he carries her back to the edge of the swamp. Nicholas takes a large stick and smacks the alligators, then picks up Millie and, after placing her back on solid ground, turns his head and points to the side of his face. Millie gives him a quick peck on the cheek.
Later that day, Paul rows to shore with a cask to fill with fresh water. Litchfield is out on his porch and, when he notices Paul approaching, he hurries into his house and hides. After knocking on the front door several times, Paul takes the cask around the house and fills it with water from the tank. Paul starts to carry the full cask back to the rowboat, but Nicholas runs up to Paul, knocks the cask out of his hands and stomps it with his feet.
When Paul tells John what happened, John rows to the shore and confronts Nicholas, telling him to leave his property alone. Nicholas replies that John should leave Millie alone.
When John gets back to the rowboat, he notices that Millie is fishing nearby. He hesitates, then goes over to help her reel in what appears to be a sizable catch. The fish frees itself from the hook, though, causing the pole to flip upward and sending Millie back against John's chest.
The next day, when John and Paul are on the Yankee's deck, Millie comes to the shore and asks to be invited to come aboard. Paul rows out to get her and, once on board, she surveys the tidy kitchen and living quarters and remarks, "It couldn't be neater if you were two nice old ladies."
Paul notes that there's a good wind for sailing, and at Millie's urging, John agrees to take her on a brief voyage. Millie begins the trip with enthusiasm, standing on the bow and exclaiming "Free at last — free!" In a short while, though, her mood transforms into one of apprehension and she runs below deck, seemingly terrified. John follows her and asks, "Why are you so afraid of things?" "Heredity," Millie replies, "a curse that descended from my grandfather to my father, and to me."
Millie says she envies John's freedom, but he corrects her: "The only thing I valued in life was taken from me in an instant. It gave me a freedom I did not want and left me a lonely, aimless wanderer."
When John takes Millie back to shore on the rowboat, they are greeted by Nicholas who is carrying a concealed knife. Nicholas lunges at John with the knife, but John knocks Nicholas to the ground and knocks the knife away. An angry Nicholas pulls the branch off a tree and slaps it against the tree trunk before collapsing in a sitting position and crying.
That night on the boat, Millie dominates John's thoughts. Still fearful of becoming attached to someone, John wakes Paul and instructs him to get the ship under way immediately.
Nicholas confronts Millie and asks her to marry him. Aghast, Millie tells Nicholas he'll have to leave. "Don't say that, Millie. Please don't get me started," Nicholas replies. Millie runs to her room and blocks the door by putting a chair underneath the doorknob.
John has a change of heart and steers the Yankee back into the inlet. He tells Millie, "I had to come back – I couldn't go away without you." Millie warns that Nicholas would kill both of them and shows John a wanted poster seeking Nicholas on a murder charge and containing the warning, "He is a homicidal maniac." "He said if I ran away he'd kill grandfather," Millie said. John tells Millie to bring Litchfield to the wharf at eight o'clock that night.
That evening Millie takes her grandfather into the drawing room, shuts the door and begins making preparations to leave. As she helps him with his coat, his face freezes into an expression of fear as he stares at something behind her. Millie turns around and is shocked to see Nicholas has partially opened the door and is watching them.
At the wharf, Paul and John light a match to check a pocket watch and note that it's going on nine o'clock. John tells Paul that if anything happens to him, Paul gets his boat and some cash while Millie will get the balance of his assets. John then heads up to the house, carrying a gun.
John first enters the drawing room and finds Litchfield's body on the floor. He hears Nicholas pacing upstairs (depicted by a shot of Nicholas's feet walking back and forth across the floor). Nicholas is in Millie's room and has tied Millie on her bed and put a gag over her mouth.
John quietly makes his way upstairs and stealthily makes his way down the second-floor hallway. He catches his foot in a hole in the floor, dropping his gun, and the commotion brings Nicholas out of Millie's room. The two men begin to fight on the stairwell. Nicholas brandishes a knife, but John bites his hand, forcing him to drop it. The men tumble down to the first floor and John pushes Nicholas against a table, overturning a lamp and starting a fire in the drawing room.
Millie has managed to free herself after a long struggle. She and John head to the wharf with Nicholas close on their heels. Nicholas and Paul get into a struggle, but Paul manages to push Nicholas away and join John and Millie in the rowboat.
A frustrated Nicholas heads back inside the burning house and finds the gun John dropped. Nicholas heads back down to the wharf with the gun.
John wants to set sail, but Paul warns that it's low tide and the boat would just barely clear the bar
. John tells Paul to go up on deck and raise the sails anyway.
Nicholas begins shooting at the boat, wounding Paul. John finishes raising the sails and an injured Paul attempts to steer the boat. Back on shore, a vicious dog that Litchfield had kept chained up breaks free, runs down to the wharf and savagely mauls Nicholas.
Paul tells Millie to take the ship's wheel just before he loses consciousness. John takes a pole and begins calling out water depths until the boat clears the bar.
"Wild Oranges — at first surprisingly bitter, but after a moment pungent and zestful with a never-to-be-forgotten flavor."
"Mystery — the insidious scents of earth – the veiled lure of sex – Life's traps were set with just such treacheries."
(Millie tells John) "You remind me of the cast-iron dog that used to stand on our lawn. I talked to it by the hour, but it just rusted away – cold and indifferent to the last."
1924 in film
-Events:* Entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
. On January 12, 2010 the film had its first home video release, on the Warner Archive DVD series.
Plot
John Woolfolk and his wife are riding down a country lane in a horse-drawn wagon. The wind blows some pages from a newspaper across the road, startling the two horses and causing them to bolt. As the horses take the wagon around a curve at high speed, John's wife is thrown from the vehicle and killed instantly.Disillusioned, John adopts a reclusive life on the sea, sailing along the Atlantic coast in his schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
Yankee, accompanied only by his ship's mate, Paul Halvard.
One afternoon the men steer the Yankee across a bar into an inlet along the Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
coast. The approach of John's schooner is watched disapprovingly by two men —Litchfield Stope, master of the once-grand house that sits on the inlet, who developed a lifelong distrust of strangers during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, and Nicholas, a maniacal brutish man who has bullied his way into Stope's household. At the same time, John is standing on the deck of his boat and surveying the shore through a pair of binoculars
Binoculars
Binoculars, field glasses or binocular telescopes are a pair of identical or mirror-symmetrical telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point accurately in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects...
. Woolfolk notices the once-grand house. He also spies a young woman swimming near the shore – Millie Stope, Litchfield's granddaughter.
After anchoring the Yankee, John takes a rowboat ashore. As he makes his way toward the Stope's house, he picks a couple of wild orange
Wild orange
Wild orange refers to plants bearing fruit reminiscent of oranges. They are not necessarily related to family Rutaceae however:* Capparis mitchellii - family Capparaceae, from Australia...
s off a tree. Millie comes out of the house and asks, "What do you want?"
"I came ashore to arrange for a supply of water – but I've stolen your oranges," John replies.
"We have plenty of both ... help yourself," Millie responds as she takes John around the house to show him where the water tank is located.
Nicholas secretly watches the interaction between Millie and John and he sees Millie pick four oranges and put them in the pockets of John's blazer. After John returns to his boat, though, he takes the oranges out of his pockets and throws them into the water.
The next morning, Millie walks down to the shore carrying a fishing pole. Nicholas intercepts her and demands that she give him a kiss. Millie screams and attempts to run, but Nicholas grabs her and threatens to put her in the swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
if she doesn't kiss him. Millie still refuses, so Nicholas carries her into the swamp and puts her atop a cypress
Cypress
Cypress is the name applied to many plants in the cypress family Cupressaceae, which is a conifer of northern temperate regions. Most cypress species are trees, while a few are shrubs...
root sticking out of the water. Nicholas moves to the edge of the swamp and laughingly taunts Millie as a couple of alligator
Alligator
An alligator is a crocodilian in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae. There are two extant alligator species: the American alligator and the Chinese alligator ....
s menacingly rise from the water. Terrified, Millie agrees to give Nicholas a kiss if he carries her back to the edge of the swamp. Nicholas takes a large stick and smacks the alligators, then picks up Millie and, after placing her back on solid ground, turns his head and points to the side of his face. Millie gives him a quick peck on the cheek.
Later that day, Paul rows to shore with a cask to fill with fresh water. Litchfield is out on his porch and, when he notices Paul approaching, he hurries into his house and hides. After knocking on the front door several times, Paul takes the cask around the house and fills it with water from the tank. Paul starts to carry the full cask back to the rowboat, but Nicholas runs up to Paul, knocks the cask out of his hands and stomps it with his feet.
When Paul tells John what happened, John rows to the shore and confronts Nicholas, telling him to leave his property alone. Nicholas replies that John should leave Millie alone.
When John gets back to the rowboat, he notices that Millie is fishing nearby. He hesitates, then goes over to help her reel in what appears to be a sizable catch. The fish frees itself from the hook, though, causing the pole to flip upward and sending Millie back against John's chest.
The next day, when John and Paul are on the Yankee's deck, Millie comes to the shore and asks to be invited to come aboard. Paul rows out to get her and, once on board, she surveys the tidy kitchen and living quarters and remarks, "It couldn't be neater if you were two nice old ladies."
Paul notes that there's a good wind for sailing, and at Millie's urging, John agrees to take her on a brief voyage. Millie begins the trip with enthusiasm, standing on the bow and exclaiming "Free at last — free!" In a short while, though, her mood transforms into one of apprehension and she runs below deck, seemingly terrified. John follows her and asks, "Why are you so afraid of things?" "Heredity," Millie replies, "a curse that descended from my grandfather to my father, and to me."
Millie says she envies John's freedom, but he corrects her: "The only thing I valued in life was taken from me in an instant. It gave me a freedom I did not want and left me a lonely, aimless wanderer."
When John takes Millie back to shore on the rowboat, they are greeted by Nicholas who is carrying a concealed knife. Nicholas lunges at John with the knife, but John knocks Nicholas to the ground and knocks the knife away. An angry Nicholas pulls the branch off a tree and slaps it against the tree trunk before collapsing in a sitting position and crying.
That night on the boat, Millie dominates John's thoughts. Still fearful of becoming attached to someone, John wakes Paul and instructs him to get the ship under way immediately.
Nicholas confronts Millie and asks her to marry him. Aghast, Millie tells Nicholas he'll have to leave. "Don't say that, Millie. Please don't get me started," Nicholas replies. Millie runs to her room and blocks the door by putting a chair underneath the doorknob.
John has a change of heart and steers the Yankee back into the inlet. He tells Millie, "I had to come back – I couldn't go away without you." Millie warns that Nicholas would kill both of them and shows John a wanted poster seeking Nicholas on a murder charge and containing the warning, "He is a homicidal maniac." "He said if I ran away he'd kill grandfather," Millie said. John tells Millie to bring Litchfield to the wharf at eight o'clock that night.
That evening Millie takes her grandfather into the drawing room, shuts the door and begins making preparations to leave. As she helps him with his coat, his face freezes into an expression of fear as he stares at something behind her. Millie turns around and is shocked to see Nicholas has partially opened the door and is watching them.
At the wharf, Paul and John light a match to check a pocket watch and note that it's going on nine o'clock. John tells Paul that if anything happens to him, Paul gets his boat and some cash while Millie will get the balance of his assets. John then heads up to the house, carrying a gun.
John first enters the drawing room and finds Litchfield's body on the floor. He hears Nicholas pacing upstairs (depicted by a shot of Nicholas's feet walking back and forth across the floor). Nicholas is in Millie's room and has tied Millie on her bed and put a gag over her mouth.
John quietly makes his way upstairs and stealthily makes his way down the second-floor hallway. He catches his foot in a hole in the floor, dropping his gun, and the commotion brings Nicholas out of Millie's room. The two men begin to fight on the stairwell. Nicholas brandishes a knife, but John bites his hand, forcing him to drop it. The men tumble down to the first floor and John pushes Nicholas against a table, overturning a lamp and starting a fire in the drawing room.
Millie has managed to free herself after a long struggle. She and John head to the wharf with Nicholas close on their heels. Nicholas and Paul get into a struggle, but Paul manages to push Nicholas away and join John and Millie in the rowboat.
A frustrated Nicholas heads back inside the burning house and finds the gun John dropped. Nicholas heads back down to the wharf with the gun.
John wants to set sail, but Paul warns that it's low tide and the boat would just barely clear the bar
Bar (river morphology)
A bar in a river is an elevated region of sediment that has been deposited by the flow. Types of bars include mid-channel bars , point bars , and mouth bars...
. John tells Paul to go up on deck and raise the sails anyway.
Nicholas begins shooting at the boat, wounding Paul. John finishes raising the sails and an injured Paul attempts to steer the boat. Back on shore, a vicious dog that Litchfield had kept chained up breaks free, runs down to the wharf and savagely mauls Nicholas.
Paul tells Millie to take the ship's wheel just before he loses consciousness. John takes a pole and begins calling out water depths until the boat clears the bar.
Poetic title cards
"From across the still water came the languorous perfume of oleanders and orange blossoms.""Wild Oranges — at first surprisingly bitter, but after a moment pungent and zestful with a never-to-be-forgotten flavor."
"Mystery — the insidious scents of earth – the veiled lure of sex – Life's traps were set with just such treacheries."
(Millie tells John) "You remind me of the cast-iron dog that used to stand on our lawn. I talked to it by the hour, but it just rusted away – cold and indifferent to the last."
Cast
- Virginia ValliVirginia ValliVirginia Valli was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s....
- Millie Stope - Frank MayoFrank Mayo (actor)Frank Mayo was an American actor. He appeared in 310 films between 1911 and 1949.He was born in New York, New York and died in Laguna Beach, California from a heart attack...
- John Woolfolk - Ford SterlingFord SterlingFord Sterling was an American comedian and actor best known for his work with Keystone Studios. One of the 'Big 4' he was the original chief of the Keystone Cops.-Biography:...
- Paul Halvard - Nigel De BrulierNigel De BrulierNigel De Brulier was an English film actor, who launched his career in the theatre stage in his native country and transferred to movies after moving to USA. His first film role was a poet in The Pursuit of the Phantom in 1914...
- Lichfield Stope - Charles A. Post - Iscah Nicholas
