The Bargain (1914)
Road agent Jim Stokes is wounded after a stagecoach holdup and nursed back to health by an Arizona rancher and his daughter, whom he marries while vowing to go straight. Captured by the sheriff, he strikes a bargain that puts his new life on the line.
The Bargain was William S. Hart’s first feature, and it fixed the template for his career: the “good bad man” of the frontier, played with a moral seriousness and plain realism that reshaped the Western. It is preserved in the National Film Registry.
Background
The Bargain is a 1914 Western starring William S. Hart and directed by Reginald Barker for the New York Motion Picture Company, Thomas Ince’s outfit, with Paramount handling distribution. It helped establish the stern, outlaw-turned-rancher persona that Hart would develop over the following years. Hart plays Jim Stokes, a road agent who is wounded in a stagecoach holdup and nursed back to health by an Arizona rancher and his daughter. He marries the daughter and vows to go straight, but is captured by the sheriff and must strike a bargain that puts his new life at risk. It is a silent film, and it is a useful example of early feature-length storytelling in the genre.
What to watch for
Pay attention to Hart’s screen presence, which rests on a restrained, stern manner that suits the reformed outlaw. The Arizona settings, with open country and dusty streets, give the film its look. The story’s central idea, a man trying to leave crime behind and being pulled back by circumstance, is the kind of moral tension that defined many Hart films. Barker’s direction is straightforward, and the action scenes, including the stagecoach holdup that opens the story, are staged for clarity. Notice how the intertitles set up the bargain that drives the final act.
