Classics of the silent screen (1959)

The church destroyed, the minister dead, Hart leaves the heroine (Clara Williams) sobbing by the body of her brother while he squares accounts. This scene from the climax of Hell's Hinges, as Bill squares off for a showdown, can be found duplicated in most of the Hart westerns. Behind a pair of six-shooters, Hart was the most deadly-looking western star of them all! through the minister's facade right away, is impressed by the sincerity of the man's sister. Because of her, he champions the minister's cause, stands up against the lawless elements, and helps in the building of a church. But Silk Miller has no intention of giving up so easily. He has the town's trollop, Louise Glaum, seduce the minister the night before he is to open the new church. Disgraced before his flock, the minister launches into a wild orgy of drinking and, while Hart is out of town, leads the saloon element in an attack on the church. Despite fierce opposition by the Godfearing townspeople, the church is burned, and the decent citizens put to rout. The minister is shot and killed in the melee. Returning to town, Hart finds the girl he now loves by the body of her dead brother— and in fury marches on the saloon-stronghold of Silk Miller's gang in this Sodom of the West. In a rugged climax, he kills Miller in a duel, and sets fire to the saloon. The whole town burns to the ground, and Bill and the heroine set out to find a new life together somewhere "over the mountains." Apart from a single blow, there are no fisticuffs, and only one short riding sequence. Hart reserves his action for the final two reels of mob fighting and the blazing town, withdrawing all restraints to slam over one of the most powerful and spectacular action sequences that he ever created. Fine camerawork, utilizing long panoramic shots and beautiful lighting, excellent editing, and a sure control over the masses of extras, fuse these scenes into an episode of astonishing vigor. Hart, his assistant, Cliff Smith, his writer, C. Gardner Sullivan, and cameraman Joe August (who later did such fine work for John Ford) were one of the sturdiest (and least recognized) teams of craftsmen the cinema ever produced. Sullivan was one of the finest of early screen-writers, and one of his most interesting plot-lines was the one he developed here in Hell's Hinges— the contrasting of Hart's reformation ("a man wholly evil," as an early subtitle tells us) with the parallel degeneration of the minister. But Moving Picture World, leading trade paper of the day, while enthusiastic about the film, and referring to "the genius of direction," tended to be critical of Hart's screen character, and remarked: "Good enough actor not to require a perpetual repetition of the Western badman reformed through the sweet and humanizing influence of a pure-minded girl, Hart should try himself out in some other role .... Hart is a fine type and capable of picturing imperfect man as he really is and long has been, a composite being, the riddle of the world." But good old Bill took no notice of the Easterners who were trying to tell him how to make westerns. He went on making them his way. Ten years later, those same criticisms levelled at Tumbleweed, on which he had again refused to compromise, finally put him out of business. But what a grand actor and filmmaker he was— with twelve years of picture-making that will surely some day be acclaimed as they deserve to be! 24