Thunderbolt's Tracks (Silent) (DVD)

After World War I, Marine Sergeant Larry Donovan and Corporal Biff Flannagan seek out the family of a pal who died in France. They find Pop Hayden and his daughter Alice in Mexico, homesteading a worthless ranch sold to them by local con men. The Leathernecks won't stand for the kinfolk of a dead buddy being swindled, but in tangling with the outlaws they could end up biting off more than even a pair of hard boiled vets can chew.

By 1926, when this low-budget melodrama was made, Hollywood producers had already thoroughly exploited the plot gimmick of World War I vets going West to spar with rustlers, bandits, con men, and crooked bankers. Jack Perrin, whose career as a leading man spanned practically the entire silent era, appeared in over 100 feature films and short subjects, almost exclusively westerns. Jack and his magnificent white stallion, Starlight, were warmly received by horse-opera fans well into the 1930s. - Ed Hulse

• western