One of the first films in world history to feature firearms as they are most often used in modern movies, Frank Hammitt was the Bruce-Willis-in-DIE-HARD star of his day. (This makes it especially tragic that the inexperienced cameramen light bulb mogul and infamous tightwad Thomas Alva Edison hired could not get Frank's head within camera frame!) Hammitt's illogical targets, cowboy Lee Martin from the "Hey, Buffalo Bill, who did you kill?" show fame, and Martin's white mount, the "broncho" Sunfish, also are driven out of frame by Hammitt's wild shots for about half of this 17.97-second short from America's first movie outfit, Edison Manufacturing Company. Even Martin's climactic dismount (after apparently being shot in the leg) occurs partially off-screen. Without flicks such as Edison's BUCKING BRONCHO (1894), it is likely American shoot-'em-ups would have been bound to follow the boring James Bond British model, in which the so-called hero is more interested in the recipe for his martini than slinging gunfire on anything that moves. What a pity that would have been!
Review of Bucking Broncho
