Hitchin' Posts
1920 · United States · 50 min
- Director
- John Ford
- Screenplay
- George C. Hull, Harold Shumate
- Cinematography
- Benjamin H. Kline
- Production company
- Universal Pictures
Cast
What it is about
Jefferson Todd, a Southern gentleman left impoverished after the Civil War, tries to rebuild his fortune by gambling on the steamboats of the Mississippi. A violent clash with his brother-in-law Louis Castiga, whom he finds aboard with another woman, sets the two men against each other and tests Todd's principles. The story then moves to a plantation owned by a colonel's daughter and, later, to the land rush out West that followed the war.
How it was made
Directed by John Ford for Universal Pictures, with a screenplay by George C. Hull and Harold Shumate and cinematography by Benjamin H. Kline. Frank Mayo leads the cast alongside Beatrice Burnham and Dagmar Godowsky. At around fifty minutes, the film belongs to Ford's early period, well before the works that would make his reputation.
Reception and legacy
Hitchin' Posts is now considered a lost film, so any assessment rests mainly on contemporary reviews and plot summaries. Its interest for historians lies in being one of Ford's early works, made before the westerns for which he is remembered today.
Stills
More films by John Ford
How Green Was My Valley
The Grapes of Wrath
The Quiet Man
The Informer
Stagecoach
How the West Was WonOriginal Cinematopedia text based on Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.