briantaves Review of Bad Buck of Santa Ynez

Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915)

Crystallizing the Hart-Ince Western Formula

[15 October 2011]

"BAD BUCK" OF SANTA YNEZ, released in May 1915 (and reissued in later years as THE BAD MAN, REVOLVER BILL, and A DESPERATE CHANCE), was directed by Hart from a story by J.G. Hawks and Thomas Ince. The movie exemplified the Hart formula crystallized under Ince, as I outline in my Ince biography. The story begins as the father of a family of pioneers is struck down with fever. Bad Buck Peters (Hart), the local terror, especially enjoys ridiculing the sheriff, but must escape town. On the road, he meets the family: a widow (Fanny Midgley) beseeches him to bury her husband, but it is the entreaty of the child (Thelma Salter) that moves Buck. Her need will reverse his lifelong penchant for misdeeds. While scenes of the pursuing posse are tensely crosscut with Buck performing the burial, he brings the desperate family with their wagon to his cabin. When the girl is bit by a rattle snake, Buck rides to town to fetch the doctor, knowing the sheriff will be gunning for him. He gets the doctor to the cabin, and the girl will be saved, but Buck crawls to her side as he expires. His villainy has been expiated, but also punished; there is nothing more for the posse to do.