''The Good Bad-Man'' is a 1916 American silent

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film directed by

Allan Dwan Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. Early life Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan was ...

. The film was written by

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckler film, swashbu ...

and produced by Fairbanks and the

Fine Arts Film Company Fine Arts Film Company produced dozens of movies during the silent film era in the United States. It was one of the film production studios in Triangle Film Corporation, each run by one of the parent company's vice-presidents: D. W. Griffith, T ...

. It stars Fairbanks and

Bessie Love Bessie Love (born Juanita Horton; September 10, 1898April 26, 1986) was an American-British actress who achieved prominence playing innocent, young girls and wholesome leading ladies in silent and early sound films. Her acting career spanned ne ...

. The film was originally distributed by

Triangle Film Corporation Triangle Film Corporation (also known as Triangle Motion Picture Company) was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in July 1915 in Culver City, California and terminated 7 years later in 1922. History The studio was founded in Jul ...

and was re-edited and re-released by Tri-Stone Pictures in 1923.

Plot

"Passin' Through" (Fairbanks) is a benevolent outlaw who robs trains to provide for fatherless children in the Old West. He knows little of his personal history but is pursued by a

U.S. Marshal The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The Marshals Service serves as the enforcement and security arm of the U.S. federal judiciary. It is an agency of the U.S. Department of Jus ...

(Cannon) who does. Along the way, he meets Amy (Love) and falls in love with her. A rival bandit, "The Wolf" (De Grasse), is also competing for Amy's affections, but Passin' and Amy ultimately marry.

Cast

Preservation status

No print of the original 1916 release is known to survive, but a print of the 1923 re-release is preserved at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. On May 31, 2014, a restored print of the 1923 version was screened at the

San Francisco Silent Film Festival The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a film festival first held in 1996 and presented annually at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, California, United States. It is the largest silent film festival in the United States, although the largest ...

at the Castro Theatre. This print included an original title card stating it was "Supervised by

D. W. Griffith David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the n ...

Release and reception

At the film's Los Angeles premiere, Bessie Love performed the song "The Rosary" by Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin. The film received positive reviews. The cast and direction were particularly praised in contemporaneous trade publications.

Legacy

Fairbanks biographer

Jeffrey Vance Jeffrey Vance (born May 21, 1970) is an American film historian and author who has published books on movie stars including Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Career While working as an archivist for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists he met El ...

considers ''The Good Bad-Man'' significant for its insight into Fairbanks's personal life. Vance wrote:

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Good Bad-Man, The 1916 Western (genre) films 1916 films American black-and-white films Films directed by Allan Dwan Surviving American silent films Triangle Film Corporation films Silent American Western (genre) films 1910s American films 1910s English-language films English-language Western (genre) films