The Copperhead

The Copperhead
Newspaper advertisement
Directed by	Charles Maigne
Written by	Augustus Thomas (play) Charles Maigne (scenario)
Based on	The Glory of His Country by Frederick Landis
Produced by	Adolph Zukor Jesse Lasky
Starring	Lionel Barrymore Doris Rankin
Cinematography	Faxon M. Dean
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	January 25, 1920 (1920-01-25)
Running time	7 reels; 6,351 feet
Country	United States
Language	Silent (English intertitles)

1920 print advertisement for film

The Copperhead is a 1920 American silent historical drama film based on a novel by Frederick Landis and a 1918 play by Augustus Thomas. The star of this film is Lionel Barrymore who won acclaim in the play version on Broadway, and who appeared in the play and this film with his first wife Doris Rankin. A print of this film has been screened in recent years.

Plot

At the beginning of the American Civil War Milt Shanks, who owns a farm in Illinois, is asked by President Abraham Lincoln to join the Copperheads, a clandestine quasi-political organization whose sentiments lie with the South. His family and friends unknowing of his mission call him a traitor.

His son later dies in a Civil War battle and his wife dies of heartbreak over the son's death. Shanks spends decades keeping silent about his involvement with the Copperheads until his granddaughter prepares to marry and he's forced to come clean about being involved in a secret Civil War Mission. With this understanding friends and family forgive him.

Cast

• Lionel Barrymore as Milt Shanks
• William P. Carleton as Lt. Tom Hardy
• Francis Joyner as Newt Gillespie (billed as Frank Joyner)
• Richard Carlyle as Lem Tollard
• Arthur Rankin as Joey
• Leslie Stowe as Brother Andrew
• Nicholas Schroell as Abraham Lincoln
• William David as Tom Hardy
• Harry Bartlett as Dr. James
• Jack Ridgeway as Theodore Roosevelt
• Mayor N.M. Cartmell as Captain Mercer
• Doris Rankin as Mrs. Shanks
• Carolyn Lee as Grandma Perley
• Anne Cornwall as Madeline
• Francis Haldorn as Elsie

Preservation

The film survives. It is available on DVD from at least one online source.

See also

• List of films and television shows about the American Civil War
• Lionel Barrymore filmography

External links

• The Copperhead at IMDb
• The Copperhead synopsis at AllMovie
• lantern slide/coming attraction; "The Copperhead" w/Lionel Barrymore
• from Italian-Wikipedia, Lionel Barrymore in the 1918 play The Copperhead