Son-of-a-Gun, The (1919)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Director Gilbert Anderson is best known as Broncho Billy and he plays the lead character here. Bill is ran out of town but he manages to sneak back in where he catches a young kid getting led into a crooked card game. Bill must risk his own life to try and get the kid out of the game and back home to his family who actually need this money so that the kid's mom can recover from a major illness. THE SON-OF-A-GUN isn't the greatest Western ever made but there are a couple nice touches within its 51-minute running time. It's funny how familiar many of these silent Westerns were as many cowboys got their "kicks" by playing tough guys who must risk everything to prove what a great person they are. If they have a dark side then it's some misunderstood thing that they will eventually work out and everyone will see them for the great person they actually are. This is a rather weird screenplay to say the least because the events in the plot I just gave don't happen until around the forty-minute mark. Everything leading up to this has Broncho Billy buying drinks, having fun, refusing to drink with kids and then getting kicked out of town. I must admit that I'm in somewhat of a fog on why he gets kicked out of town but it had something to do with being a tough guy, which it turns out he really isn't. I thought as a director Anderson didn't show too much because he struggles to keep a flow going and there are a few times where certain shots are just downright flat. The one interesting bit of style happens when the bad guy rides up to a local bar and the camera is sitting right at the gate and slowly works itself back to reveal what the people on the inside are doing when they notice him standing out the door. As far as a performance goes, Anderson fits the role fairly well but he's certainly not in the same league as William S. Hart or Tom Mix. There are a few silly moments including one where the young guy takes his first sip of whiskey and pretty much goes into a seizure. This overacting at least gives us a laugh.
