Double Feature: The Squaw Man (DVD)

Cecil B. DeMille's The Squaw Man is a first and a last. The 1914 version is widely regarded as the first feature film made in Hollywood. And DeMille makes the final film under his MGM contract with a 1931 Talkie of the oft-told tale (DeMille lensed a second silent version in 1918) about a British outcast in the West, his Native American bride and events that shatter their happiness. The films vary greatly. The first is packed with events -- a horse race, a brawl with a Scotland Yarder, a shipboard fire, a night in New York -- that foreshadow DeMille's ambitious narrative reach. The second hones in on the tender and ultimately heartbreaking familial relationship. Same story. Same filmmaker. A rare chance to experience them in different ways.

• western