Enjoyable silent romantic comedy/western starring William S. Hart as a wild west Cowboy who gets in a barroom brawl in an Arizona bar after finding out the state has gone "dry" (and he just arriving with a taste for a "pail of liquor", oh no), he's then sent heading out of town by rail, hog-tied. Well, he reads about a job in NYC to be "guardian" for a wealthy man's 27-year old playboy son, the duties to mainly entail going out drinking and brawling with him - right up his alley, oh boy! So he hightails it to the big city, promptly gets hired, and is put into white tie, tails, and top hat - all ready for the nightclubs (and let me just say, Hart cleans up real nice - swoon). A real duck out of water, so to speak, he ditches the top hat in favor of his cowboy hat as soon as he can - next thing you know, he is enlisted by the dad to get ahold of some "love letters" that the son's pretty girlfriend (Seena Owen), a waitress (not desirable to dad), is holding. He heads over to the "Wheat Cake Restaurant" where she works, and lacking the courage to actually come out and ask for the letters, he ends up eating 18 pancakes but never quite works up the nerve. Poor guy, he's become completely smitten with this woman! In a fun climax to save the letters, now in the clutches of a detective hired to get them when Hart continually fails at the task - our cowboy commandeers a New York City police horse for a wild west style ride through Central Park to save the day.
This is a quite entertaining film, the screening I saw of this, at Cinecon 43 in Hollywood, featuring a clear, great-looking sepia tinted print. William S. Hart is one of my favorite stars from that era, he seems to always play a rugged cowboy who has a real soft side and boyish bashfulness when it comes to women, which I find very appealing. His portrayal here is charming, sensitive and well done, the film itself very entertaining and fun to watch.
This is a quite entertaining film, the screening I saw of this, at Cinecon 43 in Hollywood, featuring a clear, great-looking sepia tinted print. William S. Hart is one of my favorite stars from that era, he seems to always play a rugged cowboy who has a real soft side and boyish bashfulness when it comes to women, which I find very appealing. His portrayal here is charming, sensitive and well done, the film itself very entertaining and fun to watch.