Honest Arizona rancher Sam Gardner, goes with his motherless son Billy to the city, where he is cheated out of ten thousand dollars by a band of crooks. Taking up residence in a boardinghouse where he meets Jane Ingraham, Sam decides that the only way to regain his losses is by gambling.


A desert wind hisses through the opening iris shot, kicking up alkali dust that seems to scratch the celluloid itself; within seconds we’re trafficked from sun-blistered mesas to a city whose electric glare feels carnivorous. That tonal whiplash is The Strange Boarder in microcosm—an unheralded 1920 morality fable that...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Clarence G. Badger

Clarence G. Badger
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"A desert wind hisses through the opening iris shot, kicking up alkali dust that seems to scratch the celluloid itself; within seconds we’re trafficked from sun-blistered mesas to a city whose electric glare feels carnivorous. That tonal whiplash is The Strange Boarder in microcosm—an unheralded 1920 morality fable that straps western stoicism onto urban noir’s jittery back and rides the hybrid beast until its hooves spark on cobblestones. Director Edfrid A. Bingham—better known then for scenari..."
Jim Mason
Edfrid A. Bingham, Will J. Payne
United States


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