It’s a film that hasn’t played in theaters since its original release exactly one century ago. And it’s set in fictional ‘Hampton Center, N.H.,’ a small town where a pair of big-city crooks hide out from the law.
It’s Straight is the Way, a Paramount release that proved a modest box office success in the spring of 1921. The film then completely disappeared — until now.
Next month, Red River Theaters of Concord will host the world re-premiere of Straight is the Way, which boasts a screenplay by two-time Academy Award-winning writer Frances Marion.
The film will run twice on Dec. 9 at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. General admission is $12 per person, $10 for Red River members.
Both screenings will feature live music by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who arranged for permission to screen the movie, which was transferred to digital media earlier this year.
The story follows two burglars who flee to rural Hampton Center, N.H. to hide out in the unused wing of a mansion, where an impoverished family faces eviction. Exposed to small town values, the pair resolve to change their ways.
Straight is the Way was promoted with the tagline: “They came to lift the silver, but they stayed to lift the mortgage.”
The film, a comedy/drama, features scenes in which a Ouija board is used to contact the spirits of long-dead relatives. Ouija boards had become popular in the years following World War I, when Straight is the Way was released.
How does a film disappear for 100 years, and then resurface?
Produced by Cosmopolitan Pictures, Straight is the Way was one of dozens of titles on Paramount’s 1921 release schedule. After its initial run, the film was never reissued. This was the fate of nearly all motion pictures of the era, most of which were lost to neglect, decay, or accident. Today, about 75 percent of all silent films no longer exist in any form.
But Straight is the Way is among the survivors. A single 35mm print of the film is in the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress. The print was part of a hoard of film material donated long ago by 1920s star Marion Davies, whose pictures were produced by Cosmopolitan.
However, the print is on fragile and flammable nitrate cellulose film stock, meaning it can’t be safely projected or loaned out. To keep the film from deteriorating, the print is kept in long-term storage at the Library of Congress media center in Culpeper, Va.
In 2021, Maine-based film archivist Ed Lorusso organized an online Kickstarter program to raise funds to transfer the surviving print of Straight is the Way to digital media. The fundraiser was successful, and the transfer was completed earlier this year.
Lorusso made the film available on DVD to fellow vintage film enthusiasts, including accompanist Rapsis, who felt the film’s Granite State setting merited a theatrical revival, complete with live music.
“Very few films are set in New Hampshire, then or now,” Rapsis said. “What’s interesting about Straight is the Way is that it shows how the state was viewed at the time — a place of small towns and old-fashioned ways, including a constable patrolling the town in a horse and buggy.”
Although Straight is the Way contains authentic details such as New Hampshire license plates on the few autos that appear, Lorusso has found no evidence that any part of the film was shot in the state.
Instead, Straight is the Way was produced in New York City, where Cosmopolitan Pictures was based, and which continued to host film production even after most movie-making moved to California in the 1910s.
Straight is the Way features several location shots of Manhattan scenes such as Washington Square in Greenwich Village as it appeared in 1921.
Lorusso believes the New Hampshire scenes were most likely filmed in the rural countryside of Long Island or New Jersey, just outside the city, as was common practice at the time.
The film was directed by Robert Vignola.
For more info and to purchase advance tickets, visit redrivertheatres.org or call (603) 224-4600.
