The Lady of Red Butte is a 1919 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 Western film

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 written by C. Gardner Sullivan

C. Gardner Sullivan

C. Gardner Sullivan was an American screenwriter and motion picture producer. He was a prolific writer with more than 350 films among his credits. In 1924, the magazine Story World selected him on a list of the ten individuals who had contributed the most to the advancement of the motion picture...

 and directed by Victor Schertzinger

Victor Schertzinger

Victor L. Schertzinger was an American composer, film director, film producer, and screenwriter. His films include Paramount on Parade , Something to Sing About with James Cagney, and the first two "Road" pictures Road to Singapore and Road to Zanzibar...

. Dorothy Dalton

Dorothy Dalton

Dorothy Dalton was an American silent film actress and stage personality who worked her way from a stock company to a movie career. Beginning in 1910, Dalton was a player in stock companies in Chicago and Holyoke, Massachusetts. She joined the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation vaudeville circuits...

 stars as a benevolent saloonkeeper in conflict with a fanatical religious zealot played by Thomas Holding.

Plot

Faro Fan inherits a saloon and gambling hall in Red Butte and runs it with such wholesomeness that she has a positive influence on the peaceful town. Fan also devotes her time to the care of a group of orphans she has adopted. Everything is peace and harmony when an evangelist, Webster Smith, arrives in Red Butte. "Fanatically devout, crack-brained and believing every word of his intolerant dogma, he calls forth a curse on the gambling house and all who are in it." A fever strikes the town's inhabitants, and Smith takes credit for it. Smith then prays for a fire to cleanse the town and destroy every building except the church as a sign of his wrath and mercy. A fire does sweep through the town, but it destroys Webster's church and every other building in Red Butte except Faro Fan's saloon. The salvation of the gambling house sends the religious fanatic into a rage, and he attacks the Lady of Red Butte. She hits him on the head, and his sanity is restored. He then becomes the personification of love and kindliness and later wins the Lady's heart.

Production

For the scene showing the destruction of Red Butte, an entire western street was built of solid lumber and then burned to the ground at a cost of several thousand dollars. The village was two blocks long with buildings on both sides of the street. It was built at Inceville on a high elevation far from all other buildings so the flames would not spread to other property. The Santa Monica

Santa Mônica

Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

 Fire Department and one chemical wagon from Los Angeles Fire Department

Los Angeles Fire Department

The Los Angeles Fire Department is the agency that provides fire protection and emergency medical services for the city of Los Angeles....

 were on hand to prevent the flames spreading to the shrubbery and timber on the mountains. When Thomas H. Ince

Thomas H. Ince

Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...

 gave the word, the fire was ignited, and the flames were "fanned into a fury by three huge wind machines." Between the walls of roaring flames, Dorothy Dalton, Thomas Holding and the two hundred players acted several dramatic scenes, as seven cameras shot the action under the direction of Victor L. Schertzinger and the supervision of Ince.

Cast

• Dorothy Dalton
  Dorothy Dalton
  Dorothy Dalton was an American silent film actress and stage personality who worked her way from a stock company to a movie career. Beginning in 1910, Dalton was a player in stock companies in Chicago and Holyoke, Massachusetts. She joined the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation vaudeville circuits...
  
   ..... Faro Fan
• Thomas Holding ..... Webster Smith
• Tully Marshall
  Tully Marshall
  William Phillips was an American character actor known as Tully Marshall, with nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience behind before he made his first film appearance in 1914.-Career:...
  
   ..... Spanish Ed
• William Courtright
  William Courtright
  William Courtright was an American film actor. He appeared in 68 films between 1912 and 1930. He was born in New Milford, Illinois and died in Ione, California...
  
   ..... Hoodoo
• Josef Swickard
  Josef Swickard
  Josef Swickard was a German-born veteran stage and screen character actor, who had toured with stock companies in Europe, South Africa, and South America.-Career:...
  
   ..... Delicate Hanson
• May Giraci ..... Sugar Plum

Critical reception

According to the critic for the Waterloo Times, Sullivan's screenplay "is filled with situations of an unusual character." The reviewer for the Lethbridge Herald noted, "A remarkable cast was chosen by Thomas H. Ince for the presentation of C. Gardner Sullivan's latest photoplay The Lady of Red Butte." Focusing on Dalton's performance, another reviewer wrote: "Dorothy Dalton comes back in the style of role which made her famous early in her screen career, that of a western girl untutored to a large extent, living amid rugged surroundings, but developing a finesse in her inner nature that renders her entirely lovable despite her somewhat uncouth exterior."