The Bargain is a 1914 American silent Western film starring William S. Hart. It was the first feature film starring Hart,Progressive Silent Film List: The Bargain at silentera.com who would go on to become the most popular Western actor of the silent film era. In 2010, it was one of the 25 films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." The second Hart Western to be named to the National Film Registry (after Hell's Hinges in 1994), The Bargain was said to have been selected because of Hart's charisma, the film's authenticity and realistic portrayal of the Western genre.2010 National Film Registry Announced, Library of Congress Press Release, Dec. 28, 2010
Cast William S. Hart as Jim Stokes J. Frank Burke as Sheriff Bud Walsh Clara Williams as Nell Brent J. Barney Sherry as Phil Brent Joseph J. Dowling as Reverend Joshua Wilkes
Production A portion of The Bargain was filmed at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Reissues In 1918, a revised version of the film was submitted for review by the Chicago Board of Censors that had scenes in which the Sheriff released a prisoner to holdup gamblers and associated intertitles were eliminated, and new intertitles and scenes with newspaper articles stating that the sheriff and bandit had paid the penalty for their crimes had been inserted. A version cut from 7 to 5 reels was distributed prior to 1920, and in 1920 Hart's production company released it under the title The Two-Gun Man in the Bargain.
References
External links The Bargain essay by Brian Taves at National Film Registry. Thomas Ince: Hollywood's Independent Pioneer (University Press of Kentucky, 2012) by Brian Taves, pages 66–68,