User Reviews

Charles Bennett orders Bob Burns to take the old horse out and shoot it. Burns refuses, because he loves Bennett's daughter, Mary Charleson, who loves the horse. Bennett fires Burns and takes the horse out to shoot it himself...

Oh, the heck with it. The point of this short western from Roland Sturgeon's unit at Vitagraph, is the second half, when Miss Charleson rides the horse out to stop the Burns' lynching. It's that part that should be cut interestingly, showing the inevitable workings of the lynch mob and setting up the tension by intercutting with Miss Charleson on the horse: will she get there in time? Instead the pacing of the editing is erratic and not particularly gripping.

If you wish to see for yourself if I am right or wrong, there is a copy of the film at the Eye Institute site on Youtube.

The chase story and the love story will never grow trite so long as the first is ridden fairly and the second is acted sincerely. The trouble nearly always is that the first is very seldom ridden with fair play and no faking and the second very seldom rings true. This picture is a combination of both. The Vitagraph Western players are competent and while in this instance, they lacked a first class scenario, their acting has done much to redeem it. Mary Charleson and Robert Burns hold up the love story well. At the climax, the heroine rides against time and difficulties to save the hero from being unjustly lynched and then follows the chase of the villain, all of which is done in a sportsmanlike manner to please a fair-play loving audience and consequently is effective, in other words, dramatic. Charles Bennet and Anne Schaefer plays the girl's parents. "Eagle Eye" plays the desperate Mexican and does a fine fall. W.H. Durham wrote the script which R.S. Sturgeon has skillfully produced. It's a very fair, not a big offering. - The Moving Picture World, January 18, 1913