In 1959 I was offered this film by a film library in Coventry for £16. I was put off by the title – Goose Woman?? – and winced at the price, but decided to take the risk because I was intrigued by other American silent films I’d seen. I was so impressed by the sheer film-making skill that I was once and for all converted to the silent era, in which I have specialised ever since. A few years later, the fact that I possessed this unique copy enabled me to secure a rare interview with Clarence Brown. “Rex Beach got his inspiration from the Hall-Mills murder – said Brown – one of the most famous trials in New Jersey – the woman implicated in that was a pig woman. We had to search the whole of California and New Mexico to get enough geese for the picture. I even broadcast an appeal on the radio. We bought the goose woman’s cottage off in the country somewhere; it had been lived in and looked great. We moved the whole thing to the Universal backlot for our set.” When I showed the film to Brown, he told me that the country lane, along which Dresser and her pet goose walk to the scene of the murder, is now the main thoroughfare of Westwood, the student town for UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles. Universal, with the blindness it customarily showed towards talent, was ready to let Brown go right after Smouldering Fires (1924). The head of the scenario department in New York, Frederica Sagor (still alive at 102 and the author of a new book – The Shocking Miss Pilgrim – about her experiences) pointed out to Carl Laemmle that Brown was just about their best director and how about keeping him on? She had bought the Rex Beach short story; Laemmle agreed to assign it to Brown so he was retained for just one more picture. Louise Dresser wore no make-up on this picture until the last scenes. The photographs of the young Louise in operatic roles came from her vaudeville career. Her real name was Louise Kerlin, she was the sister by adoption of Paul Dresser, composer of “On the Banks of the Wabash” and Theodore Dreiser, author of An American Tragedy. It was Pauline Frederick, star of Smouldering Fires, who persuaded her to accept a part in the film. When she made The Goose Woman, she was 47. The picture was a surprise hit for Universal and it appeared on many critics’ Ten Best Lists of 1925.

Kevin Brownlow