Of Hobart Bosworth’s four films based on Jack London novels, The Valley of the Moon* is the only lost film. Because we cannot know how Bosworth adapted London’s narrative, it’s clear from this still photo that the picnic during which Billy Roberts proposes marriage to Saxon Brown was a prominent episode.
In his life, London was a relatively sophisticated diner, and in his novels, food suggests character and quality of life. So in Valley of the Moon, when Billy Roberts, a fierce boxer and wagon driver, prepares a picnic for Saxon Brown, it’s based on his own ferocious appetite. Intending to propose marriage, Billy drives his wagon into the hills beyond Oakland. “Here’s where we eat,” Billy announced. “I thought it’d be better to have a lunch by ourselves than stop at one of these roadside dinner counters. An’ now, just to make everything safe an’ comfortable, I’m goin’ to unharness the horses. We got lots of time. You can get the lunch basket out an’ spread it on the lap-robe. As Saxon unpacked the basket she was appalled at his extravagance. She spread an amazing array of ham and chicken sandwiches, crab salad, hard-boiled eggs, pickled pigs’ feet, ripe olives and dill pickles, Swiss cheese, salted almonds, oranges and bananas, and several pint bottles of beer. It was the quantity as well as the variety that bothered her. It had the appearance of a reckless attempt to buy out a whole delicatessen shop.
“You oughtn’t to blow yourself that way,” she reproved him as he sat down beside her. “Why it’s enough for half a dozen bricklayers.”
“It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she acknowledged. “But that’s the trouble. It’s too much so.”
“Then it’s all right,” he concluded. “I always believe in havin’ plenty. Have some beer to wash the dust away before we begin? Watch out for the glasses. I gotta return them.”
On the way home, Saxon reminds Billy that he ought to ask her to marry him; he is too embarrassed to ask. “For half an hour he had given no recognition of her existence save once, when the chill evening wind caused him to tuck the robe tightly about her and himself. Half a dozen times, Saxon found herself on the verge of the remark, “What’s on your mind?” but each time let it remain unuttered. She sat very close to him. The warmth of their bodies intermingled, and she was aware of a great restfulness and content.” At last, Billy says, “Say, Saxon, it’s no use my holdin’ it in any longer. It’s ben in my mouth all day, ever since lunch. What’s the matter with you an’ me gettin’ married?”
*Valley of the Moon is a euphemism for the Sonoma Valley.
Featured Image: Myrtle Stedman as Saxon Brown and Jack Conway as Billy Roberts
See Jack London. Valley of the Moon (1913); Hobart Bosworth. Valley of the Moon (1914). The screenplay by Hettie Grey Baker is based on Jack London’s novel (1913).