Knight of the Trail
About Knight of the Trail
In Canyon City, waitress Molly Stewart is engaged to Jim Treen and does not know he is an outlaw with a $1,000 reward on him. Bill Carey, an Easterner out to cheat miners, learns she has $805 in the bank. Cleaning Jim’s cabin, she finds jewels and cash under the floorboards, will not believe he means to go straight, and breaks the engagement. Jim sends the loot back to the sheriff without his name. Carey talks her into marriage and into handing him the savings, then takes the stage for a train east. The restaurant owner shows Jim Carey’s farewell letter in the Eldorado saloon. Jim cuts across the mountain and meets him at Kings River Junction. He takes the money back. In the gunfight he is wounded and Carey is killed. Molly forgives him, and the short ends as if they marry.
Cast & crew
More about Knight of the Trail
William S. Hart directed and plays Jim Treen. Richard V. Spencer and Thomas H. Ince wrote it. Robert Doeran photographed. Mutual released it on 20 August 1915. It runs 24 minutes. Leona Hutton is Molly Stewart. Frank Borzage, early in his acting career, is Bill Carey. Another festival title is A Knight of the Trails. Fritz, Hart’s horse, is on the cast list.
Themes
Making
Ince’s name is on the script with Spencer. Hart stages the turn as a returned strongbox, a stolen bankroll, and one station gunfight, inside two reels.
Look
Robert Doeran shot the cabin floorboards, the Eldorado, and the ride to Kings River Junction.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A two-reel print survives and was shown at Pordenone in 2019.
Notes
- Molly works at the OK Restaurant.
- The savings figure is $805. The reward on Jim is $1,000.
- Carey’s exit is a stagecoach toward an eastbound train. Jim’s answer is a mountain cutoff to Kings River Junction.
- Richard Abel’s note for the 2019 Pordenone festival is the scene-by-scene account used here.
- Borzage is on screen as the crook, years before the films he directed.
Scenes
- Molly lifts the floorboards and finds the cache.
- Jim returns the loot to the sheriff with no name attached.
- Carey’s farewell letter reaches Jim in the Eldorado.
- At Kings River Junction the gunfight kills Carey and wounds Jim.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Knight of the Trail (1915).webm)
