Director: Tom Mix
Cast: Tom Mix, Rose Bronson, Ed Brady, John Maloney
Have I Seen It Before: I’m not even entirely sure I’ve seen it now. History isn’t even sure whether it was made in 2026, 2025, or 1915. I’ve never gone through this much trouble trying to find a one-sheet for a movie.
Did I Like It: At what point is a film too incomplete to be called anything else other than lost?
I’ve seen silent films that are in worse condition—oddly enough, they are mostly Tom Mix movies—where time and nitrate has gotten the worst of what is presented, and all we’re left is most of the light that would otherwise bleed through, and none of the shadow. A Child of the Prairie doesn’t quite have that same problem. The video copy of the original film is scratchy and has dark blotches where there might have once been action, but it is mostly intact.
And the word “mostly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that last sentence. Between occasionally shaky—to the point of being neurologically unsound—inter-titles and still other examples that were so still they had to be photos of a few extant frames, one never gets the sense that the film ever really came together, and more just had enough footage for somebody to release the film, but not quite enough for us to enjoy it fully. I don’t think I’m against releasing what’s available of a film, necessarily, but I can’t help but rank the thinner restoration jobs lower than the ones which benefitted from more luck and love than the average.
This might all be alleviated if I wasn’t a little underwhelmed by the action on display. Previously, I could marvel—even 100 years later—at Mix’s fearlessness, but he is limited here either by the footage available or a script that isn’t doing him any favors. In something approaching two hours with the film, I don’t think he even jumps on Tony the Wonder Horse more than a couple of times, and damned in he never chases somebody or gets chased by somebody in those limited efforts.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t get the full restoration treatment. Even in 1926, it was one of his lesser films.