Virginian, The (1914)
by popegrutch
This was Cecil B. DeMille’s second movie, coming only months after “The Squaw Man,” and it’s also a Western starring Dustin Farnum as a transplant to the West who bests all comers and upholds his dignity and honor. I found it rather less interesting by comparison. The Indians are there simply as handy adversaries to stymie the hero in his work, and the female character (an eastern schoolmarm) is a pretty bland romantic interest with little motivation or personality of her own. There’s an odd “day for night” bit in the middle of the movie – one shot is shown lit by a campfire in what seems to be real night, while other scenes, edited around it to appear simultaneous, are obviously shot during the daytime. I wonder how audiences read that at a time when night shooting was comparably rare, and most movies simply used the convention of showing everything by daylight because that’s all cameras could pick up. Anyway, our hero is something of a bully and even winds up lynching his best friend in the name of justice, but the film does end with the classic gunfight in the dusty street, and probably did help establish the visual standards of the genre, to say nothing of establishing DeMille as a major player in the medium.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Camera: Alvin Wyckoff
Starring: Dustin Farnum, William Elmer, Winifred Kingston
Run Time: 54 Min
You can watch it for free: here.
[…] – Girl Detective” shorts as well. The husband is Horace B. Carpenter, who was in DeMille’s “The Virginian” and “Carmen.” We are introduced to them, and the rest of the cast, through the device of […]
[…] to be able to work in feature length. He lept in with Westerns like “The Squaw Man” and “The Virginian,” then graduated in 1915 to dramas like this one (the epics he’s remembered for today don’t […]
[…] The Virginian (Alvin Wyckoff) […]
[…] is up for seven awards, including “Best Director” and “Best Picture.” His followup, “The Virginian,” hasn’t been as big a hit with the Century Academy, but box office returns have been good […]
[…] The Virginian (Alvin Wyckoff) […]