The Old Swimmin’ Hole, 1921

The Old Swimmin’ Hole is a 1921 American silent comedy film directed by Joe De Grasse based on the poem The Old Swimmin’ Hole by James Whitcomb Riley. A reviewer for Exhibitors Herald summarized, “The theme of the picture is a light one—just the pleasant little love story of a country schoolboy and girl in the era of the youth of Tom Sawyer.”

The film’s lack of intertitles has been described as innovative. “This marks an advance in film making,” the same reviewer claimed. “Their absence is not realized for some time after the feature has proceeded, a certain indication that it has been skillfully welded together without them and their place supplied by good acting.”