Scott Lord Silent Film: Knight of the Trail (Ince, 1915)

Frank Borzage stars with director William S. Hart and actress Leona Hutten, in the two reeler "Knight of Trail". Borzage shortly thereafter went on to direct silent film for The Triangle Film Corporation and although copies of the 1918 film "The Gun Woman" still exist, the remaining seven films directed by Borazge during 1918, "Innocents Pogress", "The Shoes That Danced", "Society For Sale", "An Honest Man", "Who Is To Blame", "The Ghost Flower" and "The Atom" (five reels) are presumed to be lost silenr film, with no surviving copies existing, as are the remaining two silent films Frank Borzage directed for the Triangle Film Corporation during 1919, "Tonton the Apache" and "Prudence on Broadway" (five reels).

Kenneth MacGowan, in his volume Behind the Screen, explains, if not inadvertantly, genre as having the component of developing along with the audience's expecting a recognizable star exacting similar characterizations by seeing the Western as having belonged to the actors Broncho Billy Anderson, Tom Mix and W.S. Hart, Anderson having portrayed a cowboy in four hundred shorts, Mix having portrayed a cowboy in over sixty Fox features, accompanied by three of his horses to extend the genre's parameters. "At the peak of MIx's career, he was even more popular than Hart...His short films go back to 1910 with Selig, further than Hart's, but Hart's rise was swifter. Under Ince's skillful handling, Hart developed in 1915 from an actor in two reelers into one of Triangle's two most important stars." Silent Film

Silent Western Film