Review of The Virginian

Cecil B. DeMille had made his film directing debut with The Squaw Man (first feature film) the same year as the film discussed here. While still a little on the primitive side, this first film version of Owen Wister's novel The Virginian does move along at a brisk pace and has a couple of humorous scenes before the drama involving the title character's friend Steve and thief Trampas. The first involves Virginian's (Dustin Farnum) attempts to get a hotel bed by himself by sleeping next to someone and shaking his leg bothering the other bed mates. The next one involves the title character and Steve switching babies in a separate bedroom from the parents celebrating in the dance hall. There's also a surprising scene where after Virginian hangs Steve, teacher Molly's schoolkids nearly reenact the event before she stops them. The person who plays Molly (Winifred Kingston) was married to Farnum in real life from 1924 until his death in 1929 and Dustin Hoffman later revealed he was named after this silent cowboy actor. Remade a few more times with the best known being the talkie Gary Cooper one from 1929. Worth a look for Cecil B. DeMille completists.