Western Hearts

One reason why this picture, more or less formal Western that it is, keeps its interest is that is awake to a picture's real business from the start. It pictures a dramatic situation in action; doesn't waste our time and patience by making us watch a baker's dozen of scenes that are not understood and whose whole object is local color. The picture has another advantage in the glorious scenes among which it is set. In one or two scenes the background is used meaninglessly for its own sake and this is a weakness. Also one sensational incident, the boarding of a moving freight car from horseback, is not clear as to its significance and confuses the story, until in astonishment we realize that it was the sheriff on his way to get a doctor for the sick wife of a man who, in great straights for money, had that day snatched a wallet from the very doctor that the sheriff was about to bring. It's a good picture. - The Moving Picture World, November 18, 1911