User Reviews

Bronco Billy Anderson wrote, directed, and starred in this film about a burglar faced with possibly getting caught in the act. Anderson, who starred in and/or directed hundreds of films in the silent era, was known primarily for westerns. This film has a contemporary setting, and Anderson plays a burglar who could get turned in. Anderson is shot in an argument over a girl in a dance hall, and later he comes upon the same girl who helps him in an unexpected way. Redemption via a beautiful woman was a common theme in silent films, and somehow this was palatable to audiences of the time who may have been easily swayed by the new medium's ability to manipulate. Charles Chaplin has a few brief moments in the crowd scenes. Look fast for Lloyd Bacon and silent mainstay Snub Pollard. *1/2 of 4 stars.

"His Regeneration" is an American black-and-white silent film from 1915 (even if you may hear music). This one runs for 15 minutes and was directed by Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, who also plays the central character here, a crook who gets shot in a saloon, but is helped by a young lady and later on when he accidentally robs this exact lady's house meets her again and the two have some kind of reunion you could say and it clearly shows thatg he has not forgotten what she did to help him a while earlier. It is debatable if this can be acalled a western movie in my opinion. The first location as well as the use of guns are not enough evidence for me to support that. Or Anderson's long career in western films, but we will get to that later. I think you could very well call it a drama, maybe a thriller even or most certainly a crime movie. The one thing it is not, despite the police officer meeting on the street at the very end, is a comedy. Don't be fooled by the "His" in then title, a beginning frequently used for Chaplin movies during that time. That said, the fact taht Charlie Chaplin is in this one very briefly early on is probably the main reason why it is not forgotten today because the story is not in my opinion. Chaplin was in his mid 20s here, about a decade younger than Anderson and even if not too many remember the latter today anymore, he was a huge star back then over a century ago appearing in considerably over 50 films per year during the peak of his popularity befor sadly for him he did not manage to make a successful transition into sound film, maybe also because the western genre was not among the most significant from the early days of sound movies. But he left us his fair share of works with an uncountable amount of movies, many of them not lost. This is among his most famous, even if it is mostly thanks to Chaplin. I give it a thumbs-down though as the heart may be in this film, but not enough to make up for the mediocre writing. Go watch something else instead.