In the Tennessee Hills (1915)
*** (out of 4)
Pretty good, if a tad bit silly, Western from producer Thomas Ince. Charles Ray plays Jim Carson, a man taking care of his ill mother but while he's out trying to locate some rent money the landlord is back at his place throwing his sweetheart (Enid Markey) and his mother out. The mother was recovering from a major illness so this kills her and when Jim gets back and hears the news he goes out for revenge. Ince and Ray would hit the big-time later in the year when they'd release the underrated and under-seen THE COWARD but this Western is a pretty good little warm-up that manages to be quite entertaining even with its rather silly plot. If I had to compare this film to something in the future I'd rank it right up there with the DEATH WISH sequels. Those films features really, really bad people doing something evil to someone you like so the "thrill" of watching such a picture comes from the viewer wanting to see those bad people punished. That's pretty much what we get here because the sequence where the mother dies is just so wrong but at the same time rather eye-rolling because of how tacky it is. The landlord's bodyguards pick the mother up via the blanket she's laying on and sit her in the street where she dies a couple seconds later. This act is just so "out there" that you can't help but want to see Ray gets his revenge. Ray is pretty good in his part as he handles the early stuff with the worried son bit quite well but he's also good when it comes time for the revenge. Markey is probably best remembered for being the first film Jane as she appeared in TARZAN OF THE APES three years after this picture. She too is pretty good here, although she isn't given too much to do. Clyde Tracy appears to be having fun playing the landlord. IN THE TENNESSEE HILLS isn't the greatest film ever made but it's an entertaining two-reeler that's certainly never boring.