Wagon Tracks

William S. Hart is trail guide Buckskin Hamilton in this "Story of the Santa Fe Trail" (in the words of this silent film's intertitles), a son of the new frontier who is determined to avenge the death of his younger brother (shot on a riverboat while returning from medical school in the East). Although a pretty young woman has confessed to the killing—an accident for which she still feels guilty—Buckskin is convinced that her gambler brother and her shifty fiancée were involved. As they just happen to be on the wagon train Buckskin is guiding West, he uses the opportunity to try to uncover the truth, but his personal quest is complicated when a settler kills a member of an otherwise peaceful Indian tribe and the tribe demands justice. Hart, with his lean, weather-beaten face and stony manner, was one of the first cowboy heroes of the movies, and he took a firm hand in shaping his persona by producing his pictures. Wagon Tracks, made in 1919 at the height of Hart's success, along with his regular collaborators—director Lambert Hillyer, writer C. Gardner Sullivan, and cinematographer Joe August—features striking locations, impressive attention to detail in the props and costumes, and a refreshingly sympathetic portrait of Native Americans. Remastered from a print preserved by the Library of Congress, the film also has a lovely original piano score by Andrew Earle Simpson. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)