Lone Star

• Release Year: 1916

Plot

Beacuse of the racial prejudices of the early 1900s, Native Americans were viewed as barbaric and savage, not as spiritual people who were at one with their environment. This picture, although it pretends sympathy towards Indians, is a product of its times. Lone Star (William Russell) is unhappy with the methods of the reservation's medicine man (actually, they sound more like the practices of Medieval Europeans -- beating the devil out of poor unfortunates, for example). So he goes East to study white man's medicine and becomes a surgeon of note. He falls in love with Helen Mattes (Charlotte Burton), who has decided to pursue nursing instead of flitting about in society. But her father -- a miserly slumlord -- is firmly against bringing an Indian into the family, and he brings Helen over to his side. However, when she needs an operation to save her life, Lone Star performs his best work on her. Then, disgusted with what he has seen of society life and white people, he takes his talents back to the reservation. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide