There are moments in
Straight Shooting (1917), the first feature directed by John (then Jack ) Ford, when its star Harry Carey (1878-1947) exudes a naturalism that the famous Western actors who followed him, most notably John Wayne, strove to emulate.
There are moments in
Straight Shooting (1917), the first feature directed by John (then Jack ) Ford, when its star Harry Carey (1878-1947) exudes a naturalism that the famous Western actors who followed him, most notably John Wayne, strove to emulate.
When Carey s character Cheyenne Harry is looking confidingly at the camera, his surly almost-smile is millimeter-perfect in its grudgingness and sense of the ironic. His unsteadiness and glazed expression when drunk convey that bizarre mix of hyper-selfawareness and dimmed comprehension everyone knows when they ve had two or three too many. In the rhetoric-heavy era of silent cinema acting, Carey was a marvel of minimalism – unlike William S. Hart, his peer (and fellow New Yorker