William S. Hart bought a realism and sympathy to a genre that in 1915 was considered old fashioned and reviewers couldn't praise his films enough. Trained as a stage actor (he created the role of Messala in "Ben Hur" (1899)), he had always had a yearning for the Old West and jumped at the chance to play the villain in "The Squaw Man" (1907). While playing on the stage in "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" he went to see a western movie but thought it was awful, however the cinema manager felt it was one of the best he had ever shown. He found in Thomas H. Ince a kindred friend who together would make their sort of westerns.
Snobbish Jack Sturgess (George Fisher) gets into a scrape with a young shop girl and when his father gives him an ultimatum - to marry the girl or else, he takes the "or else" and flees to the Yukon. More a melodrama in a western setting, Hart is introduced as "Yukon Ed", a straight shooting prospector but the film has already been going 25 minutes - the establishing city scenes were too long and leisurely. You could say that George Fisher is really the film's star but he has no likable character traits though, just some effete and feeble gestures. From the first scene he is seen smoking and reading "Smart Set" probably to differentiate him from Hart who is seen as a real man's man. But unfortunately it is an action of Hart's being "just one of the boys" that drives "the cad" straight into the arms of Ruby (Enid Markey), Ed's beloved and proprietor of a dry goods store. She has indicated to Ed that, whatever his feelings, she is waiting for her knight in shining armour to come along but along comes "the cad" and his uppity ways (he refuses to drink with Ed at the bar) result in the new dude getting a rough working over by some cowboys. It is all seen by Ruby who takes the weakling under her wing and is soon his willing slave, long after he has started tire of her.
Really a western with no action, apparently also known as "Hell Hound of Alaska" - how disappointed would movie goers have been with that misleading title. Louise Glaum, usually so welcome in Hart films, playing vampy dance hall girls with names like "Firefly" and "Bubbles", here has the smallest role. She is Fanny, the sophisticated city girl that Jack happily gives up the poor little department store girl for. Jack is soon married to Ruby but he spends most of his time in the local brothel. One rainy night Ruby finds him passed out in the shrub but her nursing ends up with her bedridden with pneumonia and Jack eager to make a break to return to the city "....ALONE"!! The "cad" finds the opportunity when he is ordered to ride for the doctor - or Ruby will be on "the darkening trail"!! He makes a detour and as the hours go by it is Ed who frantically rides for the doctor and also sees that Ruby's dying wish is fulfilled - that Jack will go with her on "the darkening trail"!!
George Fisher had a big career but unfortunately didn't last past the silents. His biggest hit was the Australian blockbuster for 1927 "For the Term of His Natural Life". Nona Thomas who was pretty in the part of the innocent shop girl only made a handful of films - all finished by 1919.
Snobbish Jack Sturgess (George Fisher) gets into a scrape with a young shop girl and when his father gives him an ultimatum - to marry the girl or else, he takes the "or else" and flees to the Yukon. More a melodrama in a western setting, Hart is introduced as "Yukon Ed", a straight shooting prospector but the film has already been going 25 minutes - the establishing city scenes were too long and leisurely. You could say that George Fisher is really the film's star but he has no likable character traits though, just some effete and feeble gestures. From the first scene he is seen smoking and reading "Smart Set" probably to differentiate him from Hart who is seen as a real man's man. But unfortunately it is an action of Hart's being "just one of the boys" that drives "the cad" straight into the arms of Ruby (Enid Markey), Ed's beloved and proprietor of a dry goods store. She has indicated to Ed that, whatever his feelings, she is waiting for her knight in shining armour to come along but along comes "the cad" and his uppity ways (he refuses to drink with Ed at the bar) result in the new dude getting a rough working over by some cowboys. It is all seen by Ruby who takes the weakling under her wing and is soon his willing slave, long after he has started tire of her.
Really a western with no action, apparently also known as "Hell Hound of Alaska" - how disappointed would movie goers have been with that misleading title. Louise Glaum, usually so welcome in Hart films, playing vampy dance hall girls with names like "Firefly" and "Bubbles", here has the smallest role. She is Fanny, the sophisticated city girl that Jack happily gives up the poor little department store girl for. Jack is soon married to Ruby but he spends most of his time in the local brothel. One rainy night Ruby finds him passed out in the shrub but her nursing ends up with her bedridden with pneumonia and Jack eager to make a break to return to the city "....ALONE"!! The "cad" finds the opportunity when he is ordered to ride for the doctor - or Ruby will be on "the darkening trail"!! He makes a detour and as the hours go by it is Ed who frantically rides for the doctor and also sees that Ruby's dying wish is fulfilled - that Jack will go with her on "the darkening trail"!!
George Fisher had a big career but unfortunately didn't last past the silents. His biggest hit was the Australian blockbuster for 1927 "For the Term of His Natural Life". Nona Thomas who was pretty in the part of the innocent shop girl only made a handful of films - all finished by 1919.