The Return of Draw Egan

Return of Draw Egan, The (1916)

*** (out of 4)

Bandit Draw Egan (William S. Hart) goes into the city of Yellow Dog where he's mistaken for a good man. A society man offers him the job as Marshall and he reluctantly takes it for reasons we don't know. He eventually falls in love with a local woman (Margery Wilson) but soon a former foe (Robert McKim) arrives in town and threatens to blow his identity. The more films from Hart that I see the more I'm coming to realize that he loved playing the bad guy who for some reason decides to go straight. THE RETURN OF DRAW EGAN runs around 50-minutes and it's an extremely fast-paced and exciting Western but at the same time you have to wonder why Hart didn't try and explain things a little better. By 1916 he was already a major star so perhaps he just felt audiences would accept whatever they were given and that's why his bad guy just turns good for no apparent reason. What impressed me most about this film is Hart's direction as he really does a fantastic job at making the thing feel very realistic. The locations all look wonderful and Hart manages to use them to build up a terrific bit at atmosphere that really makes you feel as if you're in this town and there's no hope for anything good until Hart's character shows up. The director also does a wonderful job making sure there aren't any slow moments as we get out of the gate with an action scene as well as close with one but everything in between contains a nice bit of drama and thankfully things never get slow. There's no question that this is the type of role that Hart has been playing for a few years so it fits it nicely. That terrific face of his is just perfect for the silent pictures and he has no trouble getting across a good performance. Both Wilson and McKim add nice support in their roles. At just 50-minutes there's really no twists or turns that you won't see coming. Everything pretty much happens exactly as you'd expect it to but this really doesn't take away from any of the entertainment.