Toll Gate

William S. Hart was the first and arguably the most fascinating of silent-film cowboy stars. Hard and humorless, with a face that looked chiseled out of granite, he straddled the line between hero and criminal as the "Good Badman" of silent Western cinema. In The Toll Gate (1920), directed by Hart regular Lambert Hillyer, he plays Black Deering, the leader of a train-robbing gang sold out by one of his own men. Deering escapes with revenge on his mind, but he's wounded and seeks shelter in the lonely cabin of an abandoned woman (the beautiful Anna Q. Nilsson) where he considers the possibility of a new life, but only after he escapes not one but two posses, one of which is led by his betrayer. The stunning locations paint a hard, rugged West where Hart has practically stepped out of the craggy landscape, ruthless enough to take on the elements on their own terms and quietly driven by a harsh moral code that demands he put his own life on the line to save a boy. The only disappointment in this tinted and toned presentation is the sorry shape of the deteriorated master: rain-like scratches cover the picture in places, and burns, bleeding, washouts, and overexposures overwhelm the picture in particularly damaged spots. Also included (on the Kino video and Image DVD) is the Mack Sennett short His Bitter Pill, a slapstick parody that pokes fun at Hart's stony persona. --Sean Axmaker