Slippy McGee, directed by Wesley Ruggles, starred Wheeler Oakman as the title character, Colleen Moore as Mary Virginia Eustis, and Sam De Grasse as Father De Rance. The film was released in March of 1923 at seven reels, and is presumed lost. The film was based upon the 1917 novel
Slippy McGee: Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man, by Marie Conway Oemler. Another version of the story was filmed in 1948, and featured Donald Barry and Dale Evans in the lead roles.
Plot: Slippy McGee, a safecracker, is attempting a getaway when he suffers a mishap. As he arrives in the North Carolina town of Attleboro, he leaps from a freight train, breaks his leg, and lapses into unconsciousness. He is discovered and taken to Father De Rance, the town’s spiritual leader. When Slippy recovers consciousness, he finds his leg has been amputated. He becomes embittered, so Father De Rance undertakes the task of rehabilitating him. Slippy changes his name to John Flint, and hands over his burglar tools to the priest. No longer a safecracker, he takes an interest in butterflies, and the children of the town call him “The Butterfly Man.” Then John meets Mary Virginia Eustis. Suspicious of anyone who tries to be kind to him, his heart is eventually touched by the girl.
She gives John the first living thing that had ever belonged to him – her dog, Kerry.
Then, Doctor Westmoreland, a friend of the priest’s, obtains an artificial leg for “John.” On occasion, the “ghost” of Slippy McGee would rise up, but John would overcome it. So life becomes good for John, and when Mary Virginia sends him a photograph of herself in her graduation dress, he is overcome with joy. Madame De Rance, the priest’s mother, gives a gala festival to celebrate Mary Virginia’s homecoming, and invites John.
But John discovers that Mary Virginia loves another, a man named Lawrence Mayne.
Meanwhile, banker George Inglesby, Attleboro’s wealthiest man, wants to marry Mary Virginia. He engages Howard Hunter to blackmail Mary Virginia into the marriage. Hunter had married Mary Virginia’s sister, and had then abandoned her.
Mary Virginia tells Father De Rance and John that Hunter has a package of compromising letters in his safe.
The letters are forgeries, but there is no way or proving that, and Hunter threatens to go public with them if Mary Virginia refuses to marry Inglesby. For Mary Virginia’s sake, John allows Slippy to “return.” He tells Father De Rance he plans to rob Hunter’s safe. After an argument, Father De Rance surrenders Slippy’s burglar tools, which the priest had hidden under a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Slippy cracks Hunter’s safe, taking the letters. Then he returns the tools to Father De Rance, and says “thank God I was able to be of some use to her when she needed me. Put these back in the church. Let them be the I.O.U. of Slippy McGee.”
Screen Opinions gave a mixed review, writing that the film “suffers from inexpert editing and subtitling,” adding “in trying to keep two stars in the foreground the character of Slippy has been somewhat neglected for the romance of the girl Mary Virginia, a role nicely played by Colleen Moore. The story closes very abruptly without divulging the outcome of the romance, leaving Slippy the last lap of the picture for himself.”
Exhibitor’s Herald wrote “as so often happens in translating the work of a novelist to the screen, its screen values are not brought out forcefully enough and the picture but serves to illustrate incidents of the book,” but added “in sets and exteriors the picture is perfect, the country town scenes being especially true to life.”
Moving Picture World was more positive, noting “Wheeler Oakman gives a striking performance in the title role and an exceptionally consistent one. He handles the difficult scenes after his leg is amputated and later when he gets an artificial leg exceptionally well, never once making a false move, always keeping this fact to the fore,” but the journal added “one of the drawbacks of the film is the fact that it is slow-moving in several places and could be speeded up without injury. Some too will find the romantic side a bit disappointing, for the hero does not win the girl he loves, as she marries a character who is somewhat subordinate in the story.”
Exhibitor’s Trade Review was even more impressed, writing “seldom indeed does a hero of filmdom introduce himself right off the bat by becoming a cripple before commencing operations. But this unusual misfortune wins him sympathy at once, in fact it is the sympathetic current which flows so freely throughout the action that keeps the spectator in a receptive mood and envelops Mr. McGee in a saving atmosphere of pity. It is good screen art and the result is a picture that will assuredly please the great majority of patrons and ought to prove of considerable value as a box office proposition.”
The movie was filmed in Natchez, Mississippi, where the cast and crew spent almost seven weeks working. Upon their return to Los Angeles, Colleen Moore gave an interview with Grace Kingsley of The Los Angeles Times, which appeared in the August 14, 1921 issue. Moore had plenty of things to say about Natchez and its inhabitants, and discussed how some of the locals appeared in the film. “Mrs. Mary Connor, a society woman, played a part, and ran away with her scenes. She had trunks and trunks of clothes that had belonged to her great, great grandmother, and I wore that dear old lady’s wedding dress in a scene! The man who played the judge in the picture is a real judge – Judge Foster.” Moore added “society women were delighted to get their old mammies into the picture, too. A mammy, 90 years old, played my nurse, and she was up at 5 o’clock in the morning of the eventful day, ironing out all the aprons she owned, so has to be exactly right. She did some good acting, too.” Moore also discussed the clothing, music, etc., finishing with “we all want to go back to Natchez some day.” At a glance, the interview seemed harmless, but interspersed with Moore’s remarks, Kingsley added her own comments. In one notable paragraph, KIngsley opined that today’s parents having worked in factories when they were children had “brought forth a generation of youngsters who are pale, hollow-chested, under-nourished and subnormal mentally in many cases.” Exactly one week after the interview appeared in the Times, it was published in The Natchez Democrat. A few days later, a rebuttal appeared in the Democrat, with the writer taking umbrage at Moore for saying (among other things) “the people [of Natchez] don’t see a bunch of actors once in a blue moon,” not realizing that Kingsley had made that statement, and not Moore. Several executives from the film company attempted to clean up the mess, by writing letters to James K. Lambert, editor of the Democrat. One wrote “Miss Moore has called on me and tearfully begged that I assist her in correcting a most distressing situation,” adding “without disrespect to Miss Kingsley, I can truthfully tell you that she is a typical flippant, blasé, dramatic reporter and those things appearing in her story which have deservedly aroused the ire of Natchez’s citizens are solely the result of her natural desire to install into her stories enough of the so-called “humorous” style which might be of interest to Los Angeles readers.”
Fortunately, despite all this brouhaha, another Civil War was averted.