Hollywood came to Cordova in 1927. The filmmakers planned to make an action thriller. The movie ended up a tragedy for three men on set.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s “The Trail of ‘98” was directed by Clarence Brown.
The movie loosely was drawn from the novel about Alaska Gold Rush seekers by Canadian writer Robert W. Service.
Service today largely is remembered for his epic “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
Hollywood veteran Harry Schenck chose Alaska locations at Chilkoot Pass and the wild country outside Cordova. A Portland Oregonian account listed his position as “thrill director.”
Schenck selected the Abercrombie Rapids on the Copper River some 50 miles from Cordova to shoot a blood-racing scene.
“The Trail of ‘98” starred Western film veteran Harry Carey as chief villain, Ralph Forbes as dashing hero, and heroine Dolores Del Rio.
Del Rio inspired playwright George Bernard Shaw to compare her beauty with that of the Taj Mahal. Her film career began in the U.S. in 1925 and, later, it ended with several acclaimed films shot in Mexico.
She also served as a model for painter Diego Rivera.
Carey and Del Rio never engaged in risky scenes for the movie. They employed stunt doubles to face all dangers.
The plot featured an evil claim jumper, prospectors, and the beautiful Del Rio as a woman hoping to gain her fortune feeding hungry miners at her Klondike restaurant.
The film employed around 25 men from Alaska for work on the set, including Joseph Boutin of Juneau.
The director also hired a team of stunt men including veteran Raymond (Ray) Thompson and Lou Costello, both of Los Angeles, as well as Howard F. Daughters of Washington state.
The movie employed no audible voices of the actors, but it did introduce then-pioneering innovations in sound effects and cinematography.
The following facts come from a coroner’s inquest.
Preparations for filming began on June 29, 1927. The year’s rains had been heavy. The river’s waters were fast-moving and treacherous.
Prior to the stunt, Schenck posed for a publicity photo with “Red” Thompson, Tom Granville, and Gordon Craveth.
Six boats ventured into the river. The last boat contained stunt doubles Thompson, Granville and Craveth, according to the Juneau Empire.
They steered toward a white flag marker. There, the sixth boat was supposed to head diagonally through an eddy and head for shore.
However, the boat shot past the marker. Crew members with cables, ropes and chairs were aligned to catch boaters in an emergency.
A last-ditch lifeboat tied to pulleys was manned by Daughters.
Daughters, briefly a teacher at Eyak, served as failsafe in midstream to catch any stunt doubles coming his way.
Five of the boats returned unharmed to shore.
Then, everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Daughters was issued a rubber suit to prevent sinking, but he removed the wetsuit.
Craveth and Granville spilled from the sixth boat. They briefly grabbed the ropes. Craveth swam for his life and landed safely on a sandbar.
Granville, also a powerful swimmer, braved the currents and collapsed on shore.
Thompson also fell out of the sixth boat. The turbulent waters buffeted him, and he smashed into rocks as he drifted with the currents.
Daughters lost his balance while trying to catch one of the doomed boaters. He too fell into the frigid, swirling river.
Boutin, a World War I veteran, never hesitated. He dove into the river after Daughters, but the raging river caught him as well.
Boutin’s corpse landed three miles downriver.
Would-be rescuers plucked his body out of the river near a railroad bridge.
Rescuers combed the banks searching for Thompson and Daughters.
Their bodies never were found.
The coroner’s inquest ruled Schenck’s preventive measures seemed sufficient, finding the film company blameless.
The movie opened in 1928. It was one of the last of the silent pictures before the new age of talkies.
Costello quit stunt work. He gained fame as a comedian in radio, film and Vaudeville.
Reviewers back in 1928, and a few current writers reviewing the DVD, say the boating scene was as wild and exhilarating as director Brown intended.
I’ll have to take their word for it.
I’ve no wish to watch “entertainment” that cost three men their lives.
Hank Nuwer won first place for “Best Column” this year from the Alaska Press Club. The Alaska Children’s Trust awarded him one of four 2024 Champion for Kids awards.
