The Courage of Marge O'Doone

70 minutes (7 reels)CountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

The Courage of Marge O'Doone is a 1920 American silent drama film directed by David Smith and featuring Pauline Starke, Billie Bennett, Niles Welch and Boris Karloff (as Buck Tavish, a mountain man). It was written by Robert N. Bradbury, based on the novel by James Oliver Curwood.^[1] The film is considered to be lost.^[2]

Michael O'Doone (George Stanley), his wife Margaret (Billie Bennett) and daughter Marge (Pauline Starke) are settlers living in the Northwest. While traveling on a winter day, Michael meets with an accident and never returns home. Thinking that her husband is dead, Margaret begins to lose her grip on sanity which enables Buck Tavish (Boris Karloff), a mountain man who always admired her, to abduct her and take her to his cabin. When she finally regains her senses, she departs on a search for Michael O'Doone, leaving her daughter Marge behind. At one point in the film, there is a scene where two large ferocious grizzly bears fight with each other, a highlight of the movie.

Years later, David Raine (Niles Welch) comes across a young girl's photograph and determines to find her. Soon after, he meets Rolland, a man who spends much of his life helping others. While searching in the wilderness, David finally finds the girl in the picture, who turns out to be Marge O'Doone. He brings her to Rolland's cabin and there they discover to her surprise that Rolland is actually her missing father Michael O'Doone. Miraculously, the whole family is reunited when her mother Margaret is found soon after.

• Pauline Starke as Marge O'Doone
• Niles Welch as David Raine
• George Stanley as Michael O'Doone
• Jack Curtis as Brokaw
• William Dyer as Hauck
• Boris Karloff as Buck Tavish
• Billie Bennett as Margaret O'Doone
• James O'Neill as Jukoki
• Vincente Howard
• Jeanne Carpenter

• List of American films of 1920
• Boris Karloff filmography

• The Courage of Marge O'Doone public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• The Courage of Marge O'Doone at IMDb