The Return of Draw Egan, 1916

Hey! Did Jim Jarmusch STEAL this?

I'm watching a 1916 western starring William S. Hart. He plays an outlaw named Draw Egan. He starts using the name WILLIAM BLAKE and becomes the sheriff of a town called Yellow Dog. He's recruited for the job in another town called Broken Hope.

In Jarmusch's western Dead Man, Johnny Depp plays a guy named William Blake. Goes to a town called Machine, which is nothing like the names Yellow Dog or Broken Hope except that it's an unlikely name for a town.

Saloon was less garish than later movie saloons.

The movie didn't resemble Dead Man in any way except for that. It was pretty good, really. Somewhat gritty, not like the later Tom Mix westerns.

Made in 1916, not long after the period in which the movie was presumably set. William Hart was born in 1864 (in New York, though) and became friends with Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.

That was some shirt.

I always assumed movie westerns were wildly inaccurate. In this movie, their clothes didn't fit very well. Their hats were smaller than the absurdly large 1930's movie cowboy hats but mostly larger than the ones in the 1950's. But other than that, it was pretty much in line with all the other movies in that genre. The dialog was less clever.

Someone gets mad at William Hart for thinking he's too good to drink with them in the saloon.

Hart says that if he had known they let animals in the saloon, he would have brought his horse. Then he shoots him.

Anyway, it's available on the public domain Roku channel Pub-D-Hub if nowhere else.