Hearts in Exile (1915)

1915 was a successful year for 24-year-old Clara Kimball Young. Lured away from Vitagraph by Lewis Selznick in September 1914, after scoring her biggest hit with My Official Wife, she starred in the box office hits Trilby and Carmen. First though, she appeared in Hearts in Exile, a drama based on the novel of the same name by John Oxenham.

Born Edith Matilda Clara Kimball on 6th September 1890 to travelling stage performers, she made her stage debut at the tender age of three. She returned to the stage after a spell in her teens at the St. Francis Xavier Academy in her hometown of Chicago. In 1910 she met and wed the actor and director James Young. Two years later, they both signed with Vitagraph. Clara earned $25.00 per week, but her husband always insisted that he receive more than his wife. Often directed by her husband, Clara became a near-instant hit with film fans.

Her stock rose so swiftly that Selznick lured her away from Vitagraph to the newly formed World Film Company for a salary reputed to be ten times that awarded to her husband. Selznick was much more of a hardheaded businessman than James Stuart Blackton and Albert Smith, the heads of Vitagraph. After growing bored with his jewellery business, he had entered movies by unconventional means. Noting the turmoil at Universal while negotiating the sale of his friend Mark Dintenfass’s stock in the company, he commandeered a vacant office at the Universal headquarters, awarded himself the title of General Manager, and placed himself on the payroll. Locked in a fierce battle for the studio, company directors Carl Laemmle and Pat Powers each assumed the other had employed Selznick!

Selznick moved on from Universal to join with several other investors in the World Film Company, a firm formed to import foreign features. With Albert Spiegel, a mail-order mogul, he formed Equitable Pictures to make Kimball Young’s films. Backed by Wall Street investment firm Ladenburg, Thalman & Co., he negotiated a deal with Broadway producers William A. Brady and the Shubert brothers to adapt their stage shows for the screen. These he marketed under the less than catchy slogan, ‘Features Made from Well-Known Plays by Well Known Players,’ a direct steal of Zukor’s own ‘Famous Plays for Famous Players’ slogan. As well as Equitable Pictures, the World Film Company also released features made by Peerless and other independent companies in 1914 and 1915. Although forgotten now, the World Film Company counted among its staff directors George Archainbaud, Albert Capellani and Maurice Tourneur. Clarence Brown worked as Tourneur’s assistant; Josef von Sternberg worked there as a film cutter, and World Pictures gave writer Frances Marion her first position.

For his voluptuous star with the expressive eyes and brunette hair, Selznick created an image of the wounded, melancholic tragedienne. To uphold the image, he forbade her visiting cafes or bars.

Hearts in Exile, adapted from John Oxenham’s novel by Owen Davis, sees Miss Kimball Young playing Hope Ivanovna, a selfless aid worker dispensing money and bread to Russia’s poor citizens. Her generous deeds win her the admiration and love of two men – Paul Pavloff (Vernon Steele), a poor doctor, and the wealthy Serge Palma (Claude Fleming). She also attracts the covetous attention of Count Nicolai (Montagu Love), chief of the Secret Service. Hope marries Serge only because he can finance her good deeds but loves Paul. Nicolai has both men exiled to Siberia on false charges to leave the way clear for his seduction of Hope. However, she travels to Siberia to be with her husband, not realising that Paul and Serge swapped identities so that Serge can serve the lighter sentence and return to his wife. She stays with Paul, and when they hear Serge has died, live as man and wife. But then Serge appears with a false pardon for Paul…