From a bare description of THE TOLL GATE's major plot elements, one might think it's a revisionist Western of the 60s or 70s.
* Our hero is a robber, killer, and arsonist;
* the love interest is a single mother whose shiftless husband abandoned her and their child;
* twice our criminal hero is "unofficially" released by authorities in return for some good deed, and this is presented as a praiseworthy act;
* the only acts which are presented as truly evil are the betrayal of one's family and the betrayal of a criminal associate;
* the hero tries to go straight, but turns back to a life of crime after he can't get a job;
* the hero is on the run from both a sheriff's posse and a criminal gang;
* the hero's final redemption is accomplished by strangling a man with his bare hands and tossing his body over a cliff;
* and the "good bad man" ends the film by sending the young mother and her child back to civilization and riding off alone into the Mexican desert, never (presumably) to pay for his life of crime.
Just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun.
Of course, THE TOLL GATE doesn't display quite the cynicism or moral nihilism of its successors: the hero's redemption is set up when he surrenders to the posse after reading a passage from the Bible. Can't quite imagine Clint Eastwood doing that.
THE TOLL GATE an excellent movie by any standard, and Hart was a very fine actor, not given to the broad histrionics often used to convey emotion in the days before sound.
9/10.
* Our hero is a robber, killer, and arsonist;
* the love interest is a single mother whose shiftless husband abandoned her and their child;
* twice our criminal hero is "unofficially" released by authorities in return for some good deed, and this is presented as a praiseworthy act;
* the only acts which are presented as truly evil are the betrayal of one's family and the betrayal of a criminal associate;
* the hero tries to go straight, but turns back to a life of crime after he can't get a job;
* the hero is on the run from both a sheriff's posse and a criminal gang;
* the hero's final redemption is accomplished by strangling a man with his bare hands and tossing his body over a cliff;
* and the "good bad man" ends the film by sending the young mother and her child back to civilization and riding off alone into the Mexican desert, never (presumably) to pay for his life of crime.
Just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun.
Of course, THE TOLL GATE doesn't display quite the cynicism or moral nihilism of its successors: the hero's redemption is set up when he surrenders to the posse after reading a passage from the Bible. Can't quite imagine Clint Eastwood doing that.
THE TOLL GATE an excellent movie by any standard, and Hart was a very fine actor, not given to the broad histrionics often used to convey emotion in the days before sound.
9/10.