This was the tenth of the two-reelers Hart quickly made for Ince before the delayed release of On the Night Stage, the most prolific (and artistically significant) six months of his entire career. Shot just over a year before The Return of Draw Egan, it also features Hart as a bandit whose dark soul is still not beyond redemption. But in the compressed dramatic universe of the short film there is no time to gradually develop the reasons for the good bad man’s moral transformation. These must be drawn from the conventions of stage melodrama – in this case the appeal of a helpless woman and child. And because Hart is still not established as a first-rank star, his sacrifice does not need to be rewarded with anything but a noble death. Compare the ending here to that of Selfish Yates, a not dissim- ilar subject, three years later.

Richard e Diane Koszarski