DbcultAccessing Vault...
Cult Review
Archivist John
Senior Editor
If you have an hour to kill and you like watching guys in very clean uniforms ride through very dirty deserts, this is fine. It is mostly for people who find Tim McCoy’s intense eyes strangely comforting.
If you are the type of person who can't stand silent movies where people stare at each other for ten seconds before a title card pops up, you will absolutely hate this. It moves like molasses in the middle.
Tim McCoy plays Lieutenant Crane. He is a U.S. Cavalry guy sent to fix a town that is basically being bullied by a gang of rustlers.
The bad guys are not very subtle. They look like they haven't washed their faces in three years, which I guess is realistic for the frontier.
One thing about McCoy that always gets me—he is so stiff. He sits on his horse like he swallowed a broomstick before the cameras started rolling.
It is not a bad thing, really. He just looks very official and serious at all times.
He gets help from Molly and Jim Graham. They run the town newspaper because their dad was murdered by the outlaws earlier on.
The newspaper office looks like it was built in about twenty minutes. I kept waiting for one of the actors to lean on a wall and have the whole set wobble.
There is a scene where they are working the printing press and it feels very slow. You can actually see the dust floating in the light beams in the background.
Roy D'Arcy plays the main villain. He has one of those faces that just screams "I am going to steal your land and kick your dog."
He smirks a lot. It is a very specific, oily 1920s smirk that you don't really see in movies anymore.
Compared to something like The Road to Glory, this feels much smaller. It is clearly a "day at the office" kind of movie for the studio.
The riding scenes are definitely the best part. These guys actually knew how to handle horses back then without any movie magic.
None of that fake stuff where the actor is clearly on a wooden horse. They look like they lived in the saddle for real.
There is a guy named Bert Roach who is supposed to be the funny character. He is... okay, I guess.
Comedy in these old silent westerns is usually a hit or a miss. This one is mostly a miss, but he tries hard.
I noticed McCoy’s gloves are incredibly white. How does he keep them that clean while chasing cattle thieves through the dirt?
It is one of those weird movie details that starts to distract you. You are supposed to be worried about the rustlers, but you are just wondering about his laundry routine.
The plot goes exactly where you think it will. Crane shows up, the bad guys get nervous, and then there is a big chase at the end.
W.S. Van Dyke directed this one. He did Phantom around the same time, which is a bit more interesting to look at.
Van Dyke is good at making things look rugged, though. The town feels like it smells like wet leather and old hay.
I liked that Molly, played by Dorothy Dwan, actually does some work. She isn't just standing around in a dress waiting to be rescued the whole time.
Well, she is waiting to be rescued sometimes. But at least she knows how to run a printing press.
The brother, Jim, is played by Rex Lease. He looks like he is trying way too hard to look brave in every shot.
He has this one reaction shot when he hears about the outlaws where his eyes go huge. It is very "stage acting" and feels a bit silly now.
The ending feels a little bit rushed. Like the sun was going down and they only had five minutes of film left in the camera.
One minute they are fighting for their lives, and the next, everyone is shaking hands. It is very abrupt.
It reminds me a bit of how they handled the pacing in Treason. They just want to get to the point and go home.
If you are looking for a deep masterpiece, you should probably look elsewhere. This is just a solid B-movie from the end of the silent era.
It is cozy, in a way. Like an old wool blanket that has a few holes but still keeps you warm enough.
I will probably forget the name of the characters by next week. But I really enjoyed watching those horses run across the hills.
Also, the villain’s mustache is top tier. 10/10 mustache work for Roy D'Arcy.
It is funny how much a good mustache did for a guy's career back then. You just grew one and suddenly you were the town's biggest jerk.
Anyway, it is worth a look if you are a completionist. Or if you just want to see Tim McCoy's weirdly perfect posture one more time. 🐎
The film doesn't try to be anything it's not. It’s just a story about a guy in a hat doing the right thing.
Sometimes that is all you really need on a Tuesday night. I've seen way worse versions of this story in color.
IMDb 3.4
1911
Community
Log in to comment.
