The Toll Gate
The "de facto" end of the Western journey that began with King of the Bullwhip sees us escape the typical constraints and admitted repetition of Poverty Row and instead farther in time towards Paramount's lot during the silent age, with cinematographer <PERSON> being a tangential link to the mystic, foreboding, and quite eerie snapshots of 1932's Mystery Ranch, a film I may have to hunt down in due time. I'll start with the visuals of the film because these hold some very lovely, yet rugged shots that make even the usual workmanlike angles feel alive, detailed shots of posses hunting for their wanted man illuminated by grave shadows, dramatic tinting that makes nighttime focus of the lone town in the horizon as uninviting and distant befitting of our main character, outlaw <PERSON>, fleeing for uncertain safety, and some really ornate intertitles occupied by objects and faces important for their scenes, a game of craps interrupted with words and a pair of dice, <PERSON>'s thoughts of intense plotting captured by his masked visage, it's got a lot going for it that stuns me, a person who admittedly doesn't venture into the silent era often, and while both shots and intertitles yield more impressive results in other films from the era, seeing these in a genre that, at this point, required the most simplest of results is a breath of fresh air.
Separating itself from the typical Western as well (or at least the Westerns that would flood theaters 20 years from now), <PERSON> lands in a much more ambiguous role as our leading man, not quite a white-hat hero yet never truly a black-hat villain to scorn, merely a man who hides any personal connection behind a stoic stone-face, and the film finds his journey towards not only getting revenge on the man who betrayed him, but also find salvation and redemption from the damage he's committed, in a path most unforgiving and most unglamorous. 217
<PERSON> becomes the type of man unwilling to let a member of his gang leave scot-free as the <PERSON> of his inverted disciples, yet also becomes the type of man unable to let an innocent child drown whilst a mortified mother watches, equal parts murderous and sympathetic that results in a tough read on the man and ensuing tension towards how <PERSON>'s story will unfold, and in similar fashion to the Western deconstructions from after the genre's heyday, the film's conclusion finds bittersweetness only natural for such a complicated desperate man like the wanted <PERSON>.
The Biblical tones of The Toll Gate are evident right from the title, as <PERSON> cannot shed himself towards a new life without paying the price of his sins from his old life, stopped at the gate and unable to move on until all his loose ends wrap themselves up, regardless of whether <PERSON> can begin a new life to begin with. It's a film that seems genuine, filled with heart and soul towards the many lines seeped in this uncertain conflict between the law and the outlaw that oozes a "je ne sais quoi" quickly discarded once we enter the <PERSON> model of Westerns, and co-writer/star <PERSON> recognized the absorbing power that gritty realism in a time as marketably unforgiving as the Western could capture in a viewer, inserting a level of craftmanship that helps it stand out from its peers. For those looking for a very early, sophisticated Western, your wages are worth spending on this one. 698