Just Pals (Silent) (DVD)

Every town needs a town drunk, and the tiny village of Norwalk is no exception. "Bim" has no interest in anything except getting soused, until the day he rescues a young orphan named Bill from some thugs. The two become fast friends, and Bim even has the boy placed in the Norwalk school. It's there he meets Mary Bruce, the beautiful young school mistress. Mary unwittingly makes Bim want to sober up, but she's already engaged to bank clerk Harvey Cahill. When Cahill comes up short in his teller drawer, he asks Mary to borrow cash from the school treasury. This puts Mary in an awkward position when her boss asks to see the money. Learning that Cahill has been embezzling from the bank all along, Bim puts aside his bottle to bring the swindler to justice and save the woman he loves from jail.

After three years of cranking out shorts and features for Universal at the paltry salary of $300 a week, director John Ford (then still calling himself "Jack" Ford) signed a lucrative deal with the Fox Film Corporation. Over the next ten years, Ford would make more than 30 films for the studio, including The Iron Horse (1924) and 3 Bad Men (1926). His first was Just Pals. Though still a journeyman work, it captures the heart of small-town America like many of Ford's classics. Leading man Buck Jones was one of the most famous cowboy actors of the silent age. His popularity continued well into the sound era, starring in 'The Rough Riders' series for Monogram Pictures with Tim McCoy and Raymond Hatton. Without a doubt his career would have continued had he not died in the infamous Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942. Jones' relationship with child actor Georgie Stone in Just Pals predates that of Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in The Kid, released the following year.

BONUS: Get Your Man (1920): Neal Hart plays a U.S. Marshal on the trail of some claim jumpers in this vintage two-reeler. Hart had a relatively short career as a leading man in low-budget Western shorts and features, primarily based on his claim that he was William S. Hart's cousin (he wasn't.) However, as a bit player and stuntman, he did keep working until his death in 1949.

• silent