The Bandit's Wager

...by the cast. Grace Cunard is out west visiting her brother John Ford when a masked bandit comes riding up to the tree she is reading in and demands a kiss. He refuses, then boasts that some day she will kiss him willingly. The next day she is out motoring with her brother when they run out of gas -- imagine wasting that on a sister! -- and while he walks to town to fetch more gas, she waits in a house that's there. In walks Francis Ford, the bandit!

It's a nice short, but what it most interesting is the appearance of John Ford in his older brother's movie. John was doing some stunt work on the Universal lot, and soon would become a director, but older brother Francis and Miss Cunard were big noises at the time, star of features and serials, and the occasional short like this one.

This is very much a small, family affair. Francis Ford directed and starred as the bandit, his brother John Ford (before fame) also appears. And Grace Cunard, the writer and a D. W. Griffith holdover, stars as well. For all practical purposes, these three did everything in this early Ford western.

And, indeed, it is great to see the Ford brothers involved in the western genre so early on (1916), as they (especially John) are very much the ones who shaped and created the genre we know today, making such names as John Wayne big stars.

Unfortunately, a search online turns up practically nothing about this film, so what you see is what you get. Maybe more appears in a biography of John Ford, but without checking it is impossible to tell. Regardless, this is a solid, short, silent film that any western fan ought to check out.