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With a face chiseled out of granite and weather-beaten to hard, rough finish, William S. Hart was the silent cinema's most authentic cowboy: tough, at times downright ruthless, far from the usual glamorous hero in fringe and elaborate finery. Already middle-aged when he wrote, directed, and starred in this rare early western, Hart plays "Silent" Budd Marr, a tough prospector with a chivalrous nature that makes him easy prey for an oily villain named Handsome Jack. When Jack, the gambling house proprietor of the evocatively named desert town of Bakeoven, robs him of his gold dust and his mine deed, the vengeful cowboy turns outlaw. Clichés abound in this primitive western--Marr risks capture to save the virtue of a deluded young woman Jack has married under false pretenses and loses his heart to the innocent woman--and it's all too neatly wrapped up in an absurdly facile plot twist. But Hart is an intense and magnetic figure, a taciturn, moral man who nonetheless straddles the line between hero and villain as he's driven to extreme measures for justice. The rugged desert and mountain locations are gorgeous. The Unknown Video edition mastered from the Blackhawk Collection is fine looking, apart from sporadic damage, though many of the title cards are smeary and hard to read. An effective organ score by Bob Vaughan accompanies the film.
--Sean Axmaker
