The Restless Breed

Dwan made his first picture in 1911, invented the dolly shot around 1915, and was still working in his seventies on a series of low-budget Westerns, much admired by connoisseurs like Martin Scorsese for their supreme economy of form, the gesture of a true master. In this instance, money was obviously tight, but Dwan's craftmanship is well in evidence in the simplest of revenge stories, with Brady as the lawyer out to get his father's killer, Davis the villainous gun-runner, and a youthful Bancroft as the half-breed Indian who proves her mettle along the way. Roundly satisfying.