By the humble standards of the "B" western, this little feature comes as a very pleasant surprise indeed. Apart from Mr Shackleford who is inclined to overdo the mugging at the climax – well it was his first film, so I guess we can excuse him – the acting is amazingly natural, with excellent performances all around. Jack Hoxie makes an ingratiating hero and it's a good to see a girl who is no great beauty but nevertheless attractively in character as the heroine. Even Scout and Buck don't overdo their shenanigans. I guess director Clifford Smith can take a bow and it's good to see such attractive outdoor photography on display in the splendidly tinted Grapevine DVD
2 Reviews
Lots of flair for westerns, in a small, early film
patrickfilbeck13 September 2022
Clifford Smith's "The White Outlaw" is an underrated work of early Western film. The 1920s flick is an original, novel tale told in a blend of then-contemporary Western pulp culture and classic fairy tales. The nature shots are beautiful to look at, the work of the editors is essential to the seriousness and atmosphere of the story, and the underlying tragedy of the story anticipates many later westerns in their melancholy way of searching for profundity, or at least "The White Outlaw" is one of the early pioneer flicks that gave the western film essential traits that still have their meaning and validity today.
The actors are all surprisingly modern for the time, as is the idea of creating a film around the fate of an animal, or the bond between man and animal. Bernstein, Hoxie and Day play respectably within their silent film framework and all deliver solid performances. However, with the advent of talkies, the three disappeared from the film business beginning around 1933 - a fate that befell many of the silent film stars of the time.
All in all, "The White Outlaw" is not a masterpiece, but nevertheless definitely a work of early film history that is unfortunately too often overlooked to this day. Especially exciting are the many technical-cinematic tricks that come to the fore here, which were quite modern or experimental for their time. Especially the horse training behind it is an exciting matter and the film is an open invitation to ponder about it. A film worth seeing and an exciting look back into a very early phase of film history.
The actors are all surprisingly modern for the time, as is the idea of creating a film around the fate of an animal, or the bond between man and animal. Bernstein, Hoxie and Day play respectably within their silent film framework and all deliver solid performances. However, with the advent of talkies, the three disappeared from the film business beginning around 1933 - a fate that befell many of the silent film stars of the time.
All in all, "The White Outlaw" is not a masterpiece, but nevertheless definitely a work of early film history that is unfortunately too often overlooked to this day. Especially exciting are the many technical-cinematic tricks that come to the fore here, which were quite modern or experimental for their time. Especially the horse training behind it is an exciting matter and the film is an open invitation to ponder about it. A film worth seeing and an exciting look back into a very early phase of film history.
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