Best Western Movies of 1918

Rawden, a lumberjack in the North woods, fights with crooked dance hall owner 'Ladyfingers' Hilgard over the affections of Babette DuFresne. Hilgard is killed. When Hilgard's mother and younger brother arrive in the remote logging town, Rawden attempts to ease their suffering by creating the fiction that Hilgard had been a well-loved man who died naturally. But when young Eric Hilgard learns the truth of his brother's death, he comes gunning for Rawden.

Real life outlaw Al Jennings tells a "real" story about how he came to the aid of a woman who was abused by her alcoholic husband.

A cowboy must save his girlfriend from captivity and then cross the desert on foot with a single waterhole on the way.

Framed for embezzlement, an English nobleman flees to America, eventually finding romance in Wyoming with a young Native-American. This is the 1918 remake of the 1913 original, the first feature length Hollywood film. It is considered to be a lost film with only one reel still extant.

A mild-mannered young man has left home, and is now playing the piano in a bar in the west. The dangerous criminal Dagger-Tooth Dan enters the bar where the young man is playing. Soon afterwards, the local sheriff also arrives, with some letters that he has received. Dan notices the letters, and he switches the information in them to make the sheriff think that the piano player is the dangerous one.

Cheyenne Harry (Carey) and his pals, bent on helping their friend Rawhide Jack, attend a rodeo with the intent to win the prize for roping steers and to hand the winnings over to Jack.

Cowboy Lin McLean's restlessness takes him to Denver, where he becomes enamored of a waitress named Katie. Intending to marry her, Lin accompanies Katie back to the ranch, but a traveling rainmaker arrives in the little town, and Katie departs with him after revealing that he is her husband. Visiting Denver for Christmas, Lin adopts Katie's abandoned son Billy, and soon afterwards, the cowboy meets and falls in love with the new station agent, Jessamine "Jessie" Buckner. Lin and Jessie marry, and the little family is happy until Katie, determined to be rid of her neglectful husband and marry Lin instead, appears and drives Jessie away. Realizing that Lin does not love her, Katie poisons herself, and Jessie returns to Lin and Billy.

Dave Bland, head of a band of cattle rustlers operating in Paradise Valley, is defied by Cheyenne Harry who has driven his heard into the valley to graze. Bland calls his phantom riders together, routes Harry's cattle, and then seeks their owner intent on taking his life.

Cheyenne Harry tries to help his outlaw friend Padden evade arrest after Padden has drunkenly shot another man. In the end, the two mismatched friends fight it out, leaving Padden dead. In a romantic subplot, Harry's fiancée Alice leaves him, but finally returns.

A saloon owner loans her lover the money to buy a house, which he has led her to believe they will live in after they're married. Instead, he takes the money and buys a saloon in another town.

"Kaintuck" Ridge (Carey), refused admission to the local militia to fight on the side of Union in the American Civil War, joins a gang of marauders and at the end of the conflict finds himself a fugitive with a price on his head.

When Gawne finds his brother dying and hears that the killer has run off with his brother's wife, he swears revenge.

Drunk and disorderly cowpoke Robert Sands is banished from an Arizona frontier town and hops on a freight train heading for New York. Arriving in Manhattan, the rough-and-tumble cowboy obtains a position as "physical guardian" to a spoiled member of the social register.

A settler and his daughter are trying to homestead a plot of land. They are tricked out of the land by a crooked saloon owner, who then shoots the father and makes a play for the daughter. A local cowboy comes to her rescue.

Lassiter quits the Texas Rangers and spends his life in pursuit of a group of Mormons who kidnapped his married sister. In a town on the Utah border, he meets the Withersteens and falls in love with their daughter, Jane. He also befriends Venters, and helps him track down some bandits who have been rustling the Withersteens' cattle.

The story is set in Arizona, where the aptly nicknamed Yates is the proprietor of the local saloon. Unable to find any other work, pretty Mary Adams is forced to scrub floors in Yates' establishment. At first treating her with the same disdain that he extends to the rest of the townsfolk, Yates slowly but surely falls in love with Mary.

Outlaw Hawk Parsons, notoriously successful in his pursuits, has been caught by the local sherif of a New Mexico town in the 1850s. The overly prideful sherif and his lawmen are outsmarted and Parsons escapes. In the desert, he falls in with a reverend, his wife, and their group of missionaries, who hope to establish a church. After coming under attack by a tribe of Native Americans, Parsons strikes a deal: in exchange for the safe keeping of the missionaries, he takes the reverend's wife for himself. Ultimately a parable of Christian values, the film's narrative establishes and overcomes obstacles that test the virtue of men in the American West.

Mary Thorne is the quarter-breed daughter of prospector Marshall Thorne. She has just returned from college and when a pair of hunters, Mark Hamilton and Chester Martin, come along, she decides it would be fun to dress in native garb and fool them. Both men find themselves attracted to her, even though Indians were taboo for whites in the racist days of the 1910s.

Cowhand Steve Ransom discovers that German spies are operating along Mexican border, relaying their radio messages into Mexico and thus on to Germany. The spies learn that Steve is a fugitive from American justice.

A lost film. As described in a film magazine Exhibitors Herald on March 16, 1918: "a forest ranger known only as Headin' South (Fairbanks) goes forth in search of Spanish Joe (Campeau), a Mexican responsible for most of the treachery and outlawry along the U.S.-Mexican boarder. Headin' South gains quite a reputation as he goes along and finally believes himself worthy of joining Joe's band. in a whirlwind finish in which Joe is captured, Headin' South meets one of Joe's near victims (MacDonald) and falls in love with her."

Smoky Gap Railroad president Murray Lemantier is fed up with a bandit gang led by Buck Andrade constantly holding up his train and getting away with it. He hires ace detective David Cassidy to track down and get Buck, dead or alive. However, when Buck goes to see his dying mother she makes him promise to reform, and he does. Cassidy, though, doesn't care about that and tries to arrest him. Buck decides to do something that will once and for all show everyone that he has indeed reformed--especially Faith Lawson, a pretty station agent he's in love with.

In this re-edited, re-titled version of 'Conversion of Frosty Blake, The (1915)', some character names are changed but the story, of a New England pastor who goes out west for his health and encounters a gun-toting dance-hall owner and a beautiful dancer, remains fairly intact.

True Blue begins with the marriage of black-sheep British nobleman Gilbert Brockhurst to the daughter of a Western rancher. When he learns that he has inherited his father's title and estate, Brockhurst deserts his wife and young son Bob. Upon attaining adulthood, Bob becomes the boss of his grandfather's ranch.

Rimrock Jones is the toughest and most likeable prospector in a thriving Arizona copper camp. Having already been cheated out of several valuable copper strikes, Rimrock nonetheless forges ahead optimistically, hoping to strike it rich just once more. Unfortunately, he can't find anyone to finance his latest expedition -- except for a pretty public stenographer who uses her life savings to grubstake our hero. When Rimrock finally hits pay dirt, he tries to repay the girl for her generosity, only to find that she wants to be a full partner in his copper mine. While he mulls this over, Rimrock's rivals try to bamboozle him out of his mine with the help of a sexy "vamp".

Following in his dad's footsteps, Shefford devotes himself to freeing his community from the grip of a particularly despotic Mormon sect. In so doing, he rescues his foster sister Fay Larkin, who is coveted by lecherous Mormon elder Wagoner. As was the case in Riders of the Purple Sage, the Mormons are villains simply because they are Mormons.

While out West, prospector Harry Webb makes enemies of a con artist, Mark Brenton and the con's crooked lawyer, Frank Beekman. Jack goes to the city and meets singer Janice Williams in a cabaret. They become engaged, but Brenton also has designs on her. He tricks her into going to a room to meet with him, and Webb, hearing of the scheme, follows. What he finds when he gets there is Brenton on the floor, dead, and Janice holding a gun.

During the days of the California gold rush, Jim Shamrick toils on his claim, Hell's Crater, for two years and then decides to enjoy himself in a nearby mining camp. Bill Gordon, the owner of the local dance hall, gets Jim drunk and then, with the aid of Cherry Maurice ( Grace Cunard ), robs him. When the prospector realizes what has happened, he abducts Cherry and forces her to labor in his mine for a year. Though nearly broken by the hard work, Cherry comes to love Jim and eventually marries him.

Saul Chadron, a brutal cattle baron, is distressed that homesteaders are intruding on his domain and hires outlaws to drive them away.

Roscoe Arbuckle plays a Douglas Fairbanks fan who becomes a rotund version of his hero. As "The Sheriff", he must rescue abducted schoolteacher Betty Compson.

Ranch owner John Hardy becomes the dupe of Cleo Dade when he marries her and brings her home to be a mother to his daughter Rose.

This comedy starts with the rescue by a cowboy's dog of a baby that is floating down a gorge toward a cataract in a tiny crib. The cowboy takes the foundling to his cabin. Then the cowboy finds himself not only beset with the troubles of feeding an infant, but also is the object of a spinster who, by claiming the baby, hopes to compromise the cowboy

Pancha O'Brien, the beautiful and spirited daughter of an Irish ranch owner, is loved by two men, Sheriff Jack Webb, whom she loves, and outlaw Jim Dyke, whose attentions she repeatedly rebuffs. Jim and his men attack Pancha's ranch, burning it to the ground and killing her father. The outlaw carries her to his cabin, where Wan-o-mee, his jealous squaw, tries to stab the girl....

From James Oliver Curwood's novel about a wolfdog.

Helen is a strong-minded, upright, two-handed gunwoman and the protector of a younger brother who has fallen under the evil influence of unscrupulous companions. The climax of the story comes when Helen learns that her brother is to take part in a stage hold-up. To save him she dons male attire and holds up the stage at a point several miles in advance of her brother's attempt.

One of two former convicts is the brother of a girl station agent. The second ex-convict tries to blackmail the youth and drag him back to a criminal life, but the sister intervenes.

The Branded Man is a 1918 Western.

Harry Leon Wilson has written nothing more diverting than this story of the irreproachable English valet who is lost in a poker game to a rough-and-ready westerner and taken to Red Gap ultimately to become its social mentor and chief caterer, and there is sheer delight in the story of how the Earl, brought over to save his younger brother from the vampirish clutches of Klondike Kate, makes the lady his Countess and once more stands Red Gap upon its somewhat dizzy head.

Susan Allenby's father is killed during a robbery staged by Bannack's corrupt sheriff, Tom Slade, and his men, leaving the girl to care for her eight brothers and sisters. Andy Crawford and his father William take the orphans in, but after Andy's father is killed, the young prospector vows to avenge his death and clean up the town.

Ranch owner Tex Wilson supplies horses to the government. While on his way to Los Angeles to take care of business, Tex sees a girl, Roberta Stephens, on a runaway horse. He rescues her and they strike up an acquaintanceship.

Millionaire Larry Prentiss inherits a ranch. He decides to visit his new property incognito and gets a job as a ranch-hand. He falls in love with the ranch foreman's daughter and complications ensue.

Jack Darling of the North West Mounted Police is ordered to track down and arrest murderer Alec Young, whose girl, Dancing Pete, performs in the Nugget dance hall. En route to Nugget, Jack meets Hope Ross, who is caring for her sister's baby. Although the two fall in love, the outlook for a happy romance appears hopeless, because he believes that she is a married mother, and she thinks that he is an outlaw.

Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho outlaws known as the Border Legion. But when the Legion takes Joan Randall prisoner and leaves Cleve to guard her, he realizes that he cannot remain part of an outlaw band and decides to rescue Joan.

In the Canadian Northwest, Jen Galbraith lives in a tavern with her brother Val and her father Peter, a bootlegger who sells whiskey to the Indians. Val's friend Pierre resolves to win Jen, even though she is in love with Sergeant Tom Gellatly of the Mounted Police. When Val tries to retrieve some liquor sold illegally by the elder Galbraith to an Indian named Grey Cloud, the Indian insults Jen and Val shoots him. Tom is assigned to track down the murderer, but after he arrives at the tavern, Galbraith and Pierre drug him. Jen delivers the papers he is carrying to police headquarters, but when she discovers that they contain orders to arrest her brother, she shoots Tom to prevent him from going after Val.

The hero, a stranger in a Western town, falls in love with an Innocent girl he discovers in a wine room. He wins her after several clashes with the villain, who also loves her.

Ex-convict Dale Revenal arrives at Dudley Appleton's ranch bearing a letter of introduction from John Silver, Appleton's old friend. Appleton hires Dale, who, through his winning manner, soon wins the respect of the ranch hands and the love of the ranch owner's daughter Mary Jane. Believing himself unworthy of her, Dale tells Mary Jane that he has a wife and child in Arizona, and she reluctantly agrees to marry Jack Nelda, a local rancher. Nelda realizes that Mary Jane is still in love with Dale and plots with Bessie Dupont and her brother Pinto to kill him.

The Lion of the Hills is a Western film.