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Voidsville Follies

Works by Robert McKim (2)

The Return Of Draw Egan

William S. Hart (director/lead)
Joseph H. August (cinematographer)
C. Gardner Sullivan (writer)
Margery Wilson (lead)
Robert McKim (lead)
Louise Glaum (lead)
J.P. Lockney (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Oct 1916
Minutes: 51

Well, if yer a-hankerin' to see some good ol' boys havin' theyselves a heap a gunfightin' fun, I reckon thars 'nuff bad-ass shootouts, standoffs, stare-downs, trash-talkin', and greaser-bashin' here to tickle your fancy. But dang it, reading all them titles written in this hokey dime novel hick cowboy lingo leaves a soul plum tuckered out!

Featured elements:

: alter ego; antihero; cowboys; fighting; heroic defender; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; religion

The Silent Man

William S. Hart (director/lead)
Joseph H. August (cinematographer)
Charles Kenyon (writer)
Vola Vale (lead)
Robert McKim (lead)
J.P. Lockney (lead)
Dorcas Matthews (lead)
George Nichols (lead)
Harold Goodwin (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Nov 1917
Minutes: 47

Surprise: this drops Hart's standard cowboy-changed-by-a-woman formula. Bigger surprise: it's a total mess...

52 words of highfalutin prose on 3 title cards in the first 40 seconds to describe...nothing: Gee, the desert is awfully empty!
It gets worse. From the 90-second mark until 3 minutes in, there's never more than 6 seconds between title cards. Since the title cards are onscreen 5-9 seconds, most of time is spent reading, not viewing. The barrage of titles doesn't slow to a more reasonable pace until 5-6 minutes in.
But just when the titles let up, the action on screen in this video gets hopelessly muddled: the hero fights the villain, tries to escape, but somehow ends up out cold on the floor. The next time we see him, a fortnight later, he is followed by a man with a rifle who tells him: “You're turned loose, stranger,” - apparently, he's been jailed but we're not told why.
The hero's version of later events doesn't seem to agree with what is shown on screen.
When the hero next encounters the villain, he gets his revenge by forcing him to...do something that seems pointless and of no benefit.
Both the heroine's-little-brother subplot and the parson's-church subplot are never made to feel relevant - and are never shown to be resolved.
Worse of all, the resolution of the main conflict, between hero and villain, is the worst kind of script cop-out.

And then there is the biggest unresolved mystery: why is the hero called “Silent” when he is no more silent than anyone else in this silent film?

Featured elements:

: corruption; courtroom; cowboys; falsely accused; flashback; gambling; heroic defender; kiddie act; lynching; male bonding; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; religion; revenge; swindling; undercover agent

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