The Toll Gate (1920)

Originally posted to Facebook on 11/27/2018

The Toll Gate is the last film of our chronological detour before we return, next week, to 1929. It's our sixth film from 1920, and the second time we've seen William S. Hart in a starring role, after 1916's Hell's Hinges. We've also previously seen Anna Q. Nilsson, the female lead, in 1915's Regeneration. Lambert Hillyer directed (and wrote) this film, as well as over a hundred more, mostly westerns, from the teens up through the late forties, and then moved on to television in the fifties.

Hart plays Black Deering, the leader of a group of bandits, who is betrayed by a member of his gang after deciding to go straight. While on the run, he comes upon Nilsson, who lives alone with her insufferably adorable son. As in Hell's Hinges, Hart is supposedly an anti-hero, but his misdeeds are mostly mentioned in passing, or presented with some kind of mitigation. His heroism on the other hand is shown on-screen, or in the form of unsolicited praise from other characters. (The most cringe-inducing example of this occurs when he is told, "They may call you Black Deering, but, by God, you're white.") The film distinguishes itself from a generic western due to an intermittent grittiness and Hart's screen presence, but the characters are mainly archetypes, and have very little life beyond what the plot demands. We haven't really seen what I would consider a solid western as yet (unless you count The Wind) though that may just be due to our particular selection of films.

Next week we return to the main chronological through-line, and see our second film from 1929 -- Asphalt, directed by Joe May, and starring Gustav Fröhlich, whom we previously saw in 1927's Metropolis. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT