As the Sun Went Down

As the Sun Went Down

Directed by	E. Mason Hopper
Screenplay by	George D. Baker (scenario)
Based on	the play, As the Sun Went Down by George D. Baker
Starring	Edith Storey Lew Cody Harry S. Northrup
Cinematography	William C. Thompson
Production company	Metro Pictures
Release date	February 10, 1919 (1919-02-10) (US)^[1]
Running time	5 reels
Country	United States
Languages	Silent English intertitles

As the Sun Went Down is a 1919 American silent Western film directed by E. Mason Hopper and starring Edith Storey, Lew Cody, and Harry S. Northrup. It was released on February 10, 1919.^[2]

Plot

Colonel Billy is an ex-dance hall girl who has now gained a reputation as a gunfighter. She lives on the outskirts of Rattlesnake Gulch, where the women look down on her due to her past, while the men respect her due to her gun. She is in love with Faro Bill, a prospector who has promised to wed Billy once he strikes enough gold. One day the stage brings a preacher, Albert Atherton, and a destitute actor and his wife, Gerald and Mabel Morton, and their infant daughter to town. As a joke on Billy, they send Atherton to her house, saying that she has a room to board. Morton, in order to support his wife and child, files a claim and begins prospecting.

Morton strikes gold, and when word of his strike reaches San Francisco, the gambler Arbuthnot devises a plot to take his claim away from him. He arrives in Rattlesnake Gulch, and forms a team with a local ne'er-do-well, Pizen Ike, and gets him to agree to help in his plan to cheat Morton out of his claim. Arbuthnot has brought fake love letters from Mabel, and when he reveals them, Ike insults her in front of everyone. Feeling the need to protect his wife's reputation, Morton challenges Ike to a duel. This is falling into place as Arbuthnot had predicted. Once Ike kills Morton in the duel, they'll be able to take over the claim.

However, Billy learns of the duel and insists she step into the duel and take the place of Morton, many in the town support her, especially Faro Bill. Resistant at first, Ike agrees. But when he has the opportunity, he sneaks up behind Bill and strikes him over the head. Thinking him dead, he casts him into a crevice. Bill wakes up and begins to dig his way out of the crevice. In the process, he strikes a gold vein. He gets back to town just in time for the duel between Billy and Ike. His presence jars Ike, and Billy wounds him, and he begins to run away. Bill follows him and shoots him again in the shoulder, but the impact causes him to stumble and fall off a cliff.

Exposed, Arbuthnot admits that the letters were forged, and Mabel's name is no longer besmirched. In the aftermath of the duel and Ike's death, it is revealed that Bill is Atherton's long lost brother, and Atherton performs the marriage of Billy and Bill.