Retroformat's First Anniversary Screening! RETRO FORMAT – THE DARKENING TRAIL December 11, 2010

Retroformat's First Anniversary Screening! RETRO FORMAT – THE DARKENING TRAIL, 54 min. Before Blu-ray, before VHS, there was 8mm film. William S. Hart’s directorial debut from 1915 demonstrates the director’s intuitive grasp of the new medium with its deeply nuanced characterizations and shadowy compositions. A departure from Hart’s signature Westerns, this moody melodrama of unrequited love, infidelity and revenge takes place in frontier Alaska. With shorts including Pacific Electric's 1915 training film on trolley car safety and D.W. Griffith's “Oil and Water” (1913) with Blanche Sweet.

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