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.