The Girl from Montana (1907) User Reviews

High rating for movie's importance

[springfieldrental · 6/10 · 31 December 2020]

With Essanay Studio's 1907 "The Girl From Montana," Gilbert Anderson began a run of 375 Bronco Billy films, creating the first cowboy star in film. The series popularized Westerns, a main staple in early movies.

For the movie itself, the version I saw was less than two minutes. It seems there may be a much longer version out there since it appears this one available was a highlight reel of a more lengthy film. The movie jumped from one scene to another, atypical of films even back then. Didn't make sense to me at all, no matter how many times I saw it.

However the Bronco Billy series kicked off, Anderson became the most recognizable movie character in America for several years. He had three separate roles in 1903 famous "The Great Train Robbery," and became co-owner of Essanay in 1906. An estimated 11 million viewers would see him on the screen every day at the peak of his career. While the series sputtered to an end in 1915, Anderson would later become part-owner of the Boston Red Sox. He was against the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, and sold his share of the team shortly after. He received an honorary Oscar in 1958 for his influence in early cinema.

An Interesting-Looking Feature That Could Benefit From Careful Restoration

[Snow Leopard · 27 January 2005]

This is quite an interesting little feature in a couple of respects, and it's the kind of long-neglected silent movie that might really benefit from a careful restoration. It tells an interesting story, and it also seems to have been made with some enthusiasm and imagination.

The story of "The Girl From Montana" starts with a close-up of the heroine, apparently played by Pansy Perry. It then shows her and her beau caught up in a crisis at the hands of a group of ruffians. There is lots of action, with cross-cutting used to build up the suspense.

Both the technique and the material make it worthy of interest. The one close-up and the use of cross-cutting make this one of many features of its time that show that film-makers had become pretty resourceful even before the Griffith era. Because of the deterioration of the print, and what appear to be some gaps, you really have to watch it a couple of times to catch everything - but that is no fault of the original film-makers.

Then too, "The Girl From Montana" is one of a good number of heroines from the silent era who combine some feminine appeal with determination and toughness. Though few would realize it today, there may well have been a higher proportion of this kind of female character in movies of the first couple of decades of the 20th century than in practically any other period of cinema.

There is, unfortunately, no shortage of old silent features that would need to be restored for them to have any wide appeal today. This is only one of many such movies, and no one would claim that this is a lost masterpiece, or anything of the sort. But it's an interesting little film, and in its present state only someone with a keen interest in silent films would be able to enjoy it. With some clean-up and editing of the print, some added title cards, and a few other touches, it would probably be quite good. Even as it is, it's certainly worth seeing.