Bucking Broadway (1917)

Let’s hear it for the French! No, this charming western wasn’t made in France, nor was it financed with French money, but without the French National Center for Cinematography, we wouldn’t have it. Thought lost for years, a print was discovered in the CNC archives in 2002. Most of John Ford’s silent films—something like 86% of them—are gone. Let’s hope those French archivists keep digging.

Bucking Broadway stars Ford’s first favorite acting collaborator, Harry Carey. Carey was one of the earliest and most realistic of cowboy heroes. His continuing character, Cheyenne Harry, was amiable, relaxed, competent, and self-effacing without being shy. In this film he’s described as being “the pride of all the cowboys on the ranch” in Wyoming. He works hard and saves his money because he’s got his eye on the boss’s daughter Helen (Molly Malone). He’s bought 100 acres and built a little cabin and he offers it all to her when he asks her to marry him. 

She “gives him her promise” and even dad (L.M. Wells) approves. All seems well and everyone looks forward to the big day.

But then the viper appears in the form of Thornton (Vester Pegg), a well-dressed and slickly mannered gent from the east who visits the ranch to inspect the horse herd. He becomes smitten by Helen as only a villain from New York could be. He woos Helen, compliments and cuddles her, and on the day she’s supposed to join with Harry at the altar, she runs off with Thornton to the Big City.

Heartbroken, Harry decides to quit this place that reminds him of his lost love. He and his boss exchange their farewells in a typically Fordian scene that might seem corny if it weren’t so heartfelt. The two men console each other with back pats and hugs.

Stopping at the telegraph office on his way out of the territory, Harry is given a letter from Helen indicating that all is not well with her. Harry hops the next train to New York. On arriving he’s met by a pair of sharpers who aim to take him for all he’s got, but they soon come to admire his sincerity and decide to help him.

It’s all proceeding according to the Western Movie Handbook, but Ford delivers a terrific conclusion with all the cowboys from the ranch (who have come to New York to deliver the horses) riding down the middle of the Big City’s busiest streets and then taking on Thornton and his cronies in one of those grand John Ford melees that are a combination of realistic fisticuffs and broad sight gags.

George Hively’s script does offer one moment that takes you by surprise, a scene in which Thornton, newly arrived in New York with Helen, takes her to pay a call on a woman named Gladys (an uncredited Gertrude Astor) who just stares at the naif from Wyoming, then looks her up and down as if she were livestock. Does Thornton add to his income by bringing innocents to Gladys to be broken and trained for brothels? Girls really were trapped into the trade by men who promised them marriage and then turned them over to unscrupulous madams. A 1917 audience would have been likely to know about this. 

Shot by John W. Brown and Ben F. Reynolds, Bucking Broadway is an entertaining western made by a director who outlived the days of the silents and went on to create such memorable western talkies as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

And then there’s Harry Carey who, because of his age, had to settle for character roles when sound came in. But he didn’t really need sound. He had one of those faces.