WAGON TRACKS is an odd merger of a larger theme with a minor story, an epic crammed into five reels. William S. Hart continued under producer Thomas Ince, as I outline in my Ince biography, and in this case making a film that director Lambert Hillyer claimed led to Paramount's THE COVERED WAGON in 1923. The intertitles are filled with the soaring rhetoric of the pioneering spirit, looking to the future on the sand-rimmed trail of the Santa Fe. Complimenting the intertitles is some memorable outdoors photography as Hart guides a wagon train west.
The plot concerns how Hart, as Buckskin Hamilton, learns how his brother has been killed, and vows revenge. He refuses to believe the sweet-faced woman who claims responsibility and says it was an act of self-defence. Watching Burckskin share his water first with his horse and dog, and singing a lullaby to a baby, transforms her expectations of men. She realizes for the first time "what true manhood means," for her brother and fiancée are both cads who cheat at cards.
She reveals that it was in this way that Buckskin's brother was shot. He hauls out both the cardsharks into the desert, enduring the heat with them until they turn on each other and disclose the truth. Returning to the camp, her brother is killed by Indians demanding a sacrifice, although Buckskin tried to save him. When they arrive at their destination, there is no happy ending. Hart, the guide, is as alone amidst the west as he had been in the opening, returning back to guide another wagon train.
The plot concerns how Hart, as Buckskin Hamilton, learns how his brother has been killed, and vows revenge. He refuses to believe the sweet-faced woman who claims responsibility and says it was an act of self-defence. Watching Burckskin share his water first with his horse and dog, and singing a lullaby to a baby, transforms her expectations of men. She realizes for the first time "what true manhood means," for her brother and fiancée are both cads who cheat at cards.
She reveals that it was in this way that Buckskin's brother was shot. He hauls out both the cardsharks into the desert, enduring the heat with them until they turn on each other and disclose the truth. Returning to the camp, her brother is killed by Indians demanding a sacrifice, although Buckskin tried to save him. When they arrive at their destination, there is no happy ending. Hart, the guide, is as alone amidst the west as he had been in the opening, returning back to guide another wagon train.