The Last Outlaw (1919) proved very tantalizing. An end-of-the-West Western, it shows its grizzled hero revisiting the town of his youthful exploits. But now, in an anticipation of Ride the High Country (1962), civilization has taken over. Cars chase Bud off the streets and the theatre features movies (Universal Bluebirds at that, a bit of product placement). Ford heightens the contrast by letting us into the hero’s memory, introduced by the title: “Memories of the past flashing back to him”—the earliest reference to the term “flashback” I recall seeing in the movies.
Watch the official The Last Outlaw 1919 trailer in HD below.
In this story the young wife concerned is called upon to solve a rather momentous question. After separating from her husband, whom she has discovered to be a brute and a criminal, she is about to give herself to another man, believing her husband dead, when he appears before her fleeing from justice.
After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
During the raid on an emigrant train the girl and her brother, the only survivors, are attacked by the villain who kidnaps the girl and takes her to the camp of Calamity Anne, who takes a liking to the girl and becomes her guardian angel.
Ezra Scroggs is a shiftless gambler who has let his hotel, the Lakeview, fall on hard times. Finally his daughter Nancy gets fed up seeing all the business go to his rival, Si Whittaker at the Majestic, and she decides to do something about it.
Andy Fletcher is a blacksmith in a country village, but he dreams of racing automobiles. He gets his chance to enter a big race, but winning is complicated by a band of bank robbers.
Young Harry Kenyon returns home to Tondo City after graduating college so he can help his rancher father drive a herd of cattle to the annual market, but a pair of outlaws - Cactus Ben and Tondo Bill - are planning to steal the herd for themselves.
