WAY OUT WEST
US, 1930, 77 minutes, Black and white.
William Haines, Leila Hyams, Polly Moran, Cliff Edwards, Francis X. Bushman Jr, Charles Middleton.
Directed by Fred Niblo.
Way Out West seems more like a silent film than an early talkie. The staging and the performances are often somewhat stilted, the dialogue not particularly well developed. Perhaps this is because the director was Fred Niblo, a veteran of silent films, although he directed and acted in the Buster Keaton vehicle, Free and Easy, in the same year.
The film opens with the liveliness of the carnival, attracting shot of the variety of attractions, bearded ladies… until it comes to a glamorous act, with William Haines as Windy, the spruiker, bossing the girls around, setting up a gambling wheel to entice the cowboys in after they had viewed the dancing girls. He lets a dumb one win to entice the others and then, manipulating the wheel, gets $200. When they discover they have been robbed, the cowboys pursue him – but his leading lady has already stolen his money and is on the train that he intended to be on, and they decide to lynch him. Another cowboy, Buck, turns up, and reminds them that they won’t get their money back if Windy is dead. Noose around his neck, he is almost hanged as a horse nibbles on grass and moves forward.
The cowboys are determined to make Windy work on the range until he has paid his debt, and he is already chopping wood early in the morning, carrying the breakfast tray to the boss, who turns out to be Buck’s sister, well educated at Vassar, and clashing instantly with Windy, who moves in on her, so to speak, and there are clashes.
For most of the film, the cowboys play tricks on Windy, putting him on a bucking horse, his shovelling the manure, trying to milk cows (but rather opening tins of condensed milk), going to wash the boss’s car but driving it into a bull pen, being chased by the bull which crashes into the car … But, despite the attachment of one of the boys who wants to marry her, the boss decides to entrust her money to Windy, giving him $800 and her bank book for him to deposit the cash while he does some shopping. She is anxious when he does not return but he does, having had a flat tyre.
Windy is not invited to do a dance and he waits outside, but is challenged to go in, dances with the boss, fights with the rival and is injured. He interprets that she has turned from him, so he takes the car, has a shootout with the cowboys, is trapped in a sandstorm, gets back to the farm, blocks the door, only to find that the boys are all on his side…
A star vehicle for William Haines, historically interesting, but not memorable.
