The Virginian

Cecil B. DeMille's second feature film was this oldest of westerns where a whole lot of what became cliché was original. Owen Wister's novel The Virginian was the first of the adult western fiction that spawned the careers of such writers as Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. Previous to that the penny dreadfuls of the 19th century from such hack writers as Ned Buntline covered that field.

A lot of the principal players from DeMille's first film The Squaw Man carried over into The Virginian including star Dustin Farnum who played The title role and his wife Winifred Kingston who played the first of westerns crinoline heroines schoolmarm Molly Wood. A cliché in the making.

The story is familiar to everyone. Kingston has come west out of boredom with the east and becomes the new school teacher in a rough and very rural part of Wyoming territory. The mysterious man known only as The Virginian is your cowboy hero with a bit of rough humor to him. There's a scene here about how he and his playful pals switch babies in a make shift nursery and how couples at a square dance all go home with the wrong babies. Can't see Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea doing that.

But the basic plot we know is there. The Virginian's pal Steve after a warning from Farnum gets caught cattle rustling and Farnum is forced to hang him. He also swears to get Trampas played by Billy Elmer and Trampas who already has a grudge against The Virginian is out to get him as well.

It turns out like you would expect, but this was the mold they all came from.

First of two silent versions, this one is directed by C. B. DeMille, stars Dustin Farnum as the Virginian, and runs just under an hour. Compared to the 1929 Gary Cooper version, this one isn't bad, although Farnum probably could have dropped a few pounds. Still, he's a likable hero. This version contains the "baby swap" sequence, as does the 1929 version; in each case, I don't get why this is even in the film, since it just seems too stupid and a waste of time. I guess it's supposed to be funny, but I didn't see the humor. The hanging sequence is over pretty quickly; we get to see the shadows of the hanged rustlers, and that's an effective scene. In the final shootout, Farnum shoots his gun like he is swatting at flies. I've seen this weird motion in other silents, and wonder who came up with this, because I can't figure out how someone could aim while doing this.

Interesting silent from the very early days of Universal, based on a popular Owen Wister novel and perhaps partly scripted by him. What impressed me the most about it was the command that director Cecil B. DeMille has over feature editing at this early stage. His handling of the principal actors is not particularly outstanding; and DeMille would not further distinguish himself in this area as his long career unfolded. But DeMille understands how to intercut separate scenes so they fold into one another and move the story forward. Also DeMille shows skill in coordinating crowd scenes, which would certainly serve him well in his later biblical epics. In these respects "The Virginian" is one of the most advanced features of it's time, at least of the ones from 1914 which we can still see today.

Virginian, The (1914)

** (out of 4)

Dustin Farnum plays a cowboy from Virginia who goes out West with his best friend but a woman (Winifred Kingston) comes between them. To make things even worst, the best friend gets caught up with some castle thieves at the same time the Virginian is hired to bring the gang down. This was DeMille's second feature coming after the same year's The Squaw Man, which he would go onto remake twice. This is certainly a step down from his previous film but there's still some mild entertainment to be had here. The young DeMille hadn't came down with any of his trademark style at this point in his career but he does a good job handling the story and keeping it moving. The film runs a short 53-minutes and that time goes by real fast without any down time. The cast is pretty good and that includes leading man Farnum who was also in the director's first film. There really isn't too much action until the end but there's still some fine humor to keep the film moving.

so I watched this with a couple of friends and I don't know if Demille did it on purpose, but it has got a high value of comical performances. actors are portraying this silent as if they were the main characters in a Shakespeare play. sometimes they overact so much it becomes silly and even stupid. that's why my friends and I enjoyed it so much. they were telling each other what the persons in the movie must have been thinking. things as 'get that gun out of my ass' and 'don't you touch my horse' came spontaneously out of our minds, which made the old movie funnier to look at. it was generally stupid. I broke a finger while watching this movie and that did hurt a lot, more than I enjoyed the picture.