The Filming of For Love of A Navajo

Description

For Love of a Navajo was a silent film that was most probably made sometime in 1922, and released in that year or in 1923. In his book New Mexico Filmmaking, Jeff Berg says that the movie was filmed by the Durango Film Company or the Navajo Film Company at that time, and cites articles from the Farmington Times-Rustler that mention the filming of the movie in their community. In his Eleventh interview with the Mesa County Oral History Project, Al Look gives the story of the film's inception and creation, and talks about his starring role as a male lead in the film. According to Look, a man named James Jarvis who owned a Buick garage in Durango fancied himself a playwrite. He wrote the screenplay that eventually became For Love of a Navajo and sent it to studios in Hollywood, but received no interest. Together with a man named Marshal, who owned a theater in Durango and had become rich in the Kansas oil business, they decided to form a film company and to make the movie themselves. Jarvis and Marshal hired a professional actress (it is unclear for what role, although it may have been for the role of Look's sister in the movie) and a professional cameraman from Hollywood. A filmmaker from Denver, who happened to be in Durango at the inception of the project, offered his services as the film's director (Look does not recall his name). James Jarvis knew Al Look through a relation of his, and selected him for a role in his film. Look was working for the Durango Herald newspaper at that time, and obtained a leave of absence to work on the film. Jarvis knew an Englishman who owned a trading post in either Farmington or Aztec, New Mexico. The Englishman allowed the film company to use his land, and they built a revolving stage in his pasture, made so as to take advantage of the natural light. A man named Gold Tooth John, a Dineh, was able to convince other Native Americans to appear in the film. Look credits the film with being the first to involve Native American actors (this claim has not been verified). The film has two male leads: a consumptive and a cowboy. Look plays the consumptive, whose sister has brought him to New Mexico from Back East so that he might be cured of TB in the drier air. While in a stagecoach shortly after their arrival in Farmington, their coach is robbed by bandits. They are rescued by the cowboy (played by an actor who worked in a Durango bank). The sister and the cowboy fall in love. Footage of their courtship is inter-cut with footage of Look's character, shown coughing and growing sicker. Somehow, Look's consumptive wanders out into the desert alone, where he passes out, near death. He is found by a character named Lo-Lita, a Native American woman played by Ailene Caire (Albuquerque Journal, 24 Sep 1923, p.8). US Census records and Social Security records show that the actress Caire was born in Texas to a French father named Caire, and to a Mexican-American mother with the surname Sandoval. She was living in Albuquerque at the time of the film's shooting, and would have been about 22 years old (Al Look would have been about 29 years old). Upon finding Look's character in the desert, Lo-Lita puts him on her burro and takes him back to her hogan. There, she nurses him back to health. Look could not recall all of the film, but did remember a scene in which Native Americans storm a barn and burn it down. He references this part of the movie by saying that Jarvis had put "a lot of corn" into the movie (in other words, he found the scene corny). In their marriage scene, Lo-Lita and Look's character sit before a semi-circle of Native American women. They cross arms, eat a kind of porridge together, and are thus married. Gold Tooth John plays the officiant. The cowboy and Look's sister also marry. During the filming of For Love of a Navajo, canisters of film were sent to Hollywood, presumably to a studio there that then finished the film and sent back movie stills. These stills were used to see if the film footage was good, or if a section needed to be refilmed. After the film's release, it was shown in Durango, Farmington and Denver. In Denver, it showed in a theater on Market Street for about a month. It also showed in the Ideal Theater in Albuquerque on September 23, 24, and 25 of 1923. During the Albuquerque showings, Ailene Caire talked about the film and her role in it. Look indicates that the film was also shown elsewhere in the country. After moving to Grand Junction, Look temporarily procured a copy of the film and it was shown there as well. Look was unable to find another copy of the film during his life, and was unsure if one survived. Other interested parties have also come up empty in trying to locate a copy of For Love of a Navajo. *The above photograph is a still photo from the set of For Love of a Navajo. It pictures Ailene Caire in the role of Lo-Lita, and Al Look in the role of a consumptive. Public domain photograph from 1922. Digital image from photographic print held by the Farmington Museum.