With Harry Carey & Hoot Gibson

Universal Film Manufacturing Co. (Butterfly Photoplays) 1917

“Straight Shooting,” like 75-76 percent of films from the silent period, was lost — until a print showed up in the former Czechoslovakia. That’s why you’ll see little flashes of Czech after some of the English-language title cards; they didn’t get covered well. That’s not the fault of the folks who graciously allowed us to show you their copy — our friends at Grapevine Video in Arizona.

Carey didn’t have to travel far when his pal Ford recruited him for it; Carey had moved to Saugus the year before. Co-star Hoot Gibson was no stranger to the area (although which came first to the SCV — this film or Hoot Gibson — is like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg); Gibson rodeoed in Newhall and Saugus and even owned the Saugus rodeo in the early 1930s.

As for Ford, he evidently appreicated the versatility of Beale’s Cut because he used it four more times: in “Three Jumps Ahead” (a lost film with Tom Mix, 1923); “The Iron Horse” (1924); and “Stagecoach” with a young John Wayne and Claire Trevor (1939) — if only for about 7 seconds in the latter.