Akademik

   The old West was a dirty place. When a horse and rider came down the street of an old West town with its false front stores, dust flew everywhere. The Conestoga wagons in front of the wagon train produced huge quantities of choking dust for the wagons following. Cowboys riding drag on the trail wore bandannas over their faces to filter out the floating dirt. Dust was everywhere—except in most Western films. In most film Westerns, when the rider comes into town on the fly and pulls up to the sheriff’s office, the picture is clear of any significant dust because the production crews had just run a water truck over the set prior to the shot. Directors long ago figured they would sacrifice a bit of realism for the sake of clear pictures. The exception is the Western films of Thomas Ince and his lead actor William S. Hart. In a typical Hart two-reeler, filmed on location in Inceville, California, dust covers everything out of doors—deliberately, for the sake of realism. Unfortunately, some scenes in the old silents are quite clouded over.