Tom Mix leaves mama to join brother Eugene Pallette at the gold mine he co-owns with Will Walling. Along the way, he and Kathleen Key, the niece of the factor at the nearest Hudson Bay post meet and fall in love. After he helps out Walling, he discovers the man has been found guilty of killing Pallette, and been sentenced to the Death Trail, to walk out of the frozen, wintry landscape, and no man may help him lest he join the doomed man.
The copy I looked at was from the Czech film archive. It was trimmed from 50 minutes to 40, and the continuity was sometimes on the border between abrupt and chaotic, but I could follow what was going on Even if it hadn't been, what survives is in great condition, and the opportunity to look at a previously unseen John Ford movie was worth the effort. It's clear this is a man in full command of the camera, with his startling ability to shift the frame. There's one sequence in which we see the action through a door frame, like the concluding shot of The Searchers, and evoke a sense of isolation thereby. Tom Mix again shows himself a good performer in silent movies. It's the second of two collaborations between them -- the first is entirely lost -- and a happy addition to my lists of Ford movies and Mix movies.
The copy I looked at was from the Czech film archive. It was trimmed from 50 minutes to 40, and the continuity was sometimes on the border between abrupt and chaotic, but I could follow what was going on Even if it hadn't been, what survives is in great condition, and the opportunity to look at a previously unseen John Ford movie was worth the effort. It's clear this is a man in full command of the camera, with his startling ability to shift the frame. There's one sequence in which we see the action through a door frame, like the concluding shot of The Searchers, and evoke a sense of isolation thereby. Tom Mix again shows himself a good performer in silent movies. It's the second of two collaborations between them -- the first is entirely lost -- and a happy addition to my lists of Ford movies and Mix movies.