The Virginian

Virginian, The (1914)

** (out of 4)

Dustin Farnum plays a cowboy from Virginia who goes out West with his best friend but a woman (Winifred Kingston) comes between them. To make things even worst, the best friend gets caught up with some castle thieves at the same time the Virginian is hired to bring the gang down. This was DeMille's second feature coming after the same year's The Squaw Man, which he would go onto remake twice. This is certainly a step down from his previous film but there's still some mild entertainment to be had here. The young DeMille hadn't came down with any of his trademark style at this point in his career but he does a good job handling the story and keeping it moving. The film runs a short 53-minutes and that time goes by real fast without any down time. The cast is pretty good and that includes leading man Farnum who was also in the director's first film. There really isn't too much action until the end but there's still some fine humor to keep the film moving.

Aside from the film "The Squaw Man", "The Virginian" is about as good and well made western as you can find from the silent era. It is a quality production throughout and I strongly recommend this Cecil B. DeMille film.

Dustin Farnum stars as the title character--a fun-loving cowboy from Virginia who is the hero of this tale. The Virginian's friend is Steve--a guy described as weak in the intertitle cards. You see this weakness when Steve succumbs to the villain, Trampas, and joins in with his gang of baddies. The Virginian is friends with Steve---but he's also on the side of justice and eventually you know this will bring him into conflict with Steve and eventually with the dreaded Trampas. In addition, there is a new school mistress, Molly Wood, who both admires and is annoyed by the Virginian's rough and tumble ways. So what becomes of all these folks? See the film.

While folks who see this film today might not be that impressed by it, for 1914 it IS an incredibly well done film. The acting (aside from one instance where Molly does overact), direction and look of the film actually are way ahead of their time--as most 1914 films were much more primitive in style and look. In essence, this film helped to establish a prototype for later westerns and the only thing it had that was sadly missing in many 1930s and 40s westerns was the use of REAL Native American tribesmen-- something that shows that the studio and director tried to get the look right instead of just painting up white guys to look like Indians!

First of two silent versions, this one is directed by C. B. DeMille, stars Dustin Farnum as the Virginian, and runs just under an hour. Compared to the 1929 Gary Cooper version, this one isn't bad, although Farnum probably could have dropped a few pounds. Still, he's a likable hero. This version contains the "baby swap" sequence, as does the 1929 version; in each case, I don't get why this is even in the film, since it just seems too stupid and a waste of time. I guess it's supposed to be funny, but I didn't see the humor. The hanging sequence is over pretty quickly; we get to see the shadows of the hanged rustlers, and that's an effective scene. In the final shootout, Farnum shoots his gun like he is swatting at flies. I've seen this weird motion in other silents, and wonder who came up with this, because I can't figure out how someone could aim while doing this.

so I watched this with a couple of friends and I don't know if Demille did it on purpose, but it has got a high value of comical performances. actors are portraying this silent as if they were the main characters in a Shakespeare play. sometimes they overact so much it becomes silly and even stupid. that's why my friends and I enjoyed it so much. they were telling each other what the persons in the movie must have been thinking. things as 'get that gun out of my ass' and 'don't you touch my horse' came spontaneously out of our minds, which made the old movie funnier to look at. it was generally stupid. I broke a finger while watching this movie and that did hurt a lot, more than I enjoyed the picture.

Interesting silent from the very early days of Universal, based on a popular Owen Wister novel and perhaps partly scripted by him. What impressed me the most about it was the command that director Cecil B. DeMille has over feature editing at this early stage. His handling of the principal actors is not particularly outstanding; and DeMille would not further distinguish himself in this area as his long career unfolded. But DeMille understands how to intercut separate scenes so they fold into one another and move the story forward. Also DeMille shows skill in coordinating crowd scenes, which would certainly serve him well in his later biblical epics. In these respects "The Virginian" is one of the most advanced features of it's time, at least of the ones from 1914 which we can still see today.