Revenge on the Range (1925)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Cowboy Chuck Williams (Leo Maloney) is about to marry Alice Walton (Josephine Hill) but after fighting with a co-worker (Bob Burns) her father fires Chuck. While leaving the ranch Chuck witnesses the co-worker stealing the pay role but the bad guys frame Chuck who heads off to try and prove his innocence. After viewing LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN it's rather clear that actor Maloney liked to play good guys who were framed by bad men and then must prove his innocence as both films were pretty familiar in terms of story. This one here managed to be somewhat better because there's more action, a couple nice fist fights and we get some pretty good drama as well. With that said, there are still many problems with this short including the fact that you never really expect anything other than what we've seen countless times before to happen. It probably would have helped had there been a few twists in the story but it plays everything rather straight but it was well-made and entertaining at least. The Alpha DVD is a print taken from a Castle Films, which has the film playing at the incorrect speed, which is something that often happens with public domain releases. What's going to turn most people off, myself included, is the fact that this print must have been meant for TV as there's narration throughout the film explaining what's going on. I don't know the history of silent Westerns enough to know what's going on but it seems the film was prepared for perhaps television and people unfamiliar with silents needed narration to "follow" what was going on.
