Straight Shooting

Nicely shot by-the-book Western business from the freshly-hired 23-year-old Ford's busy first year of Universal Westerns, mostly in the Cheyenne Harry series. This one stands out a bit as Ford and Carey rather famously conspired to shoot a feature rather than the two-reeler budgeted, misleading the studio with false reports. We've a showdown in town, a crooked cattle baron staging a massive raid on local homesteaders, and maximum value derived from people passing through doorways.

The quality of the surviving print is pretty poor, and thus it's rather difficult to fully appreciate Ford's debut feature. It's rough around the edges for sure, but there are some stylish shots, particularly in the final showdown, and its influence can be felt throughout subsequent classics. Harry Carey makes a great hero too.

this is effectively a dry-run for THE SEARCHERS, complete with door shots of similar meaning; it's pretty redundant in light of what follows, but it's interesting to see just how much of ford's perspective was already in place by the age of 22. his eye for composition and staging is already developed too, from landscape shots to close-ups he invests many shots with humanity and myth. the highlight, however, is a tense stand-off scene which wittily fucks with your sense of distance.

60.000

Straight Shooting displays Ford's gift for pacing. The narrative never lags, even as Ford slows down occasionally for a reflective moment (e.g. Molly with her brother's dish). The flip of Harry's character half-way through underlines Ford's sympathy for the underdog and for the innovator. The ending has apparently been changed from its more appropriate original, which left Harry alone, outside the community. The new ending, added in 1925, leaves the film feeling false.