The Half-Breed

1916

Drama / Western

1
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 60%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 60%
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 263 263

false accusations silent film

Plot summary

In an attempt to brand himself as a serious actor, the smiling swashbuckler Douglas Fairbanks starred in THE HALF-BREED (1916), a Western melodrama written by Anita Loos and directed with flair by Allan Dwan. Fairbanks stars as Lo Dorman, who has been ostracized from society because of this mixed ethnicity - his Native American mother was abandoned by his white father. When Lo catches the eye of the rich white debutante Nellie (Jewel Carmen), he becomes a target for the racist Sheriff Dunn (Sam De Grasse), who wants to break them up and take Nelli for his own. This love triangle becomes a quadrangle with the arrival of Teresa (Alma Rubens), who is on the run from the law. Through fire and fury Lo must decide who and what he truly loves.

Director

Allan Dwan Photo
Allan Dwan

Top cast

Douglas Fairbanks Photo
Douglas Fairbanks as Lo Dorman (Sleeping Water)
Winifred Westover Photo
Winifred Westover as Belle-the-Blonde
Jewel Carmen Photo
Jewel Carmen as Nellie
Alma Rubens Photo
Alma Rubens as Teresa
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
661.61 MB
946*720
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
1 hr 11 min
Seeds 10
1.2 GB
1420*1080
English 2.0
NR
24 fps
1 hr 11 min
Seeds 11

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Larry41OnEbay-2 7 / 10

FOUND! RESTORED! Douglas Fairbanks Sr.'s early outdoor western The Half-Breed (1916) used to be a mostly lost film.

Reviewed by planktonrules 7 / 10

Great location shooting set this one apart.

While Douglas Fairbanks is famous for his fantasy and adventure films (such as THE THIEF OF BAGDAD, ROBIN HOOD and THE MARK OF ZORRO), he also made a variety of other films...including some westerns early in his film career. TCM showed two of them tonight, THE GOOD BAD MAN and THE HALF-BREED. Both are about equally enjoyable, though THE HALF- BREED is exciting to watch because of its location filming in Boulder Creek (near San Jose) and Calaveras County (near Yosemite). Seeing all these giant redwoods is reason enough to see the movie!When the film begins, a native woman has a baby and has been dumped by the father of the child. She is friendless and neither the whites nor Indians want anything to do with her. She then gives her baby to a nice old naturalist living in the woods then she kills herself! So the child is raised away from civilization by the old man. When the old guy dies, the now grown Sleeping Water (Fairbanks) travels to the nearby town and learns that pretty much most of the white folks he meets are Indian-hating scum. He decides to leave and return to the woods and is soon joined by Teresa, a woman who has stabbed two perverts who couldn't keep their hands off her. Additionally, Nellie from town inexplicably has fallen for Sleeping Water...as has Teresa. What's next? See the film.While this is not a great film, it does do a nice job of humanizing the main character and the plot all centers on how trashy the 'civilized' white folks could be. In many ways, this is like a great silent western, THE SQUAW MAN...which is a must-see. As for THE HALF-BREED, it's very good for when it was made and ages reasonably well. Sadly, the film was restored by piecing together many different prints and some of them are pretty shabby condition- wise.
Reviewed by daviuquintultimate 6 / 10

The moral of the story.

Read more IMDb reviews

3 Comments

Be the first to leave a comment