Maria Marten is a 1928 British silentdrama film directed by Walter West starring Trilby Clark, Warwick Ward and Dora Barton.[3] It is based on the real story of the Red Barn Murder in the 1820s, and is one of five film versions of the events. The film shifted the action to fifty years earlier to the height of the Georgian era.[4] This was the last of the silent film adaptations of the Maria Marten story, and its success paved the way for the much better 1935 sound film remake starring Tod Slaughter. A 35mm print of the 1928 silent film exists in the British Film Institute's archives.[5]
Plot
When his secret lover Maria Marten tells him she is pregnant with his child and asks him to marry her, the villainous Squire Corder murders her and buries her body in the red barn. The dead woman's ghost later visits her mother in a dream, and leads her to find her daughter's body, incriminating the squire.
