Tansy

Tansy is a 1921 British silent drama film directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Gerald Ames and James Carew. The film was based on a popular rural novel of the time by Tickner Edwardes, and was filmed largely on location on the Sussex Downs. Tansy is a rare survival among Hepworth's feature-length films of the late 1910s and early 1920s, most of which are believed to have been irretrievably lost following Hepworth's bankruptcy in 1924, when his film stock was seized and melted down by administrators to release its saleable silver nitrate content. A full print of the film is held in the British Film Institute's National Archive. Hepworth once remarked: "It was always in the back of my mind from the very beginning that I was to make English pictures with all the English countryside for background and with English idiom throughout." Critical assessment of Tansy tends to confirm the ability to capture beautiful English rural landscapes on film as Hepworth's greatest skill, albeit sometimes to the detriment of dramatic narrative when the scenery seems to command more of his attention than the actors or the plot. Plot George Firle (Rolf Leslie) is a shepherd, helped in his work by daughter Tansy (Taylor) who has learned shepherding skills from her father. One evening Tansy slips out of the house after her father has gone to the pub to meet up with farm labourer Clem (Ames). George returns, finds Tansy absent and goes to look for her. He finds her in Clem's caravan, trying to fight off unwanted advances, and rescues her. The owner of the farm hears about the incident and assumes that it shows Tansy's immorality and that she must have been leading Clem on to end up in such a compromising situation. He orders George and Tansy to leave the farm.