威廉·S·哈特也许是所有西部片明星中最伟大的一位，因为与加里·库珀和约翰·韦恩不同，他出演的清一色都是西部片。
William S. Hart was, perhaps, the greatest of all Western stars, for unlike Gary Cooper and John Wayne he appeared in nothing but Westerns.
从1914年到1924年，他独领风骚，无人能及。
From 1914 to 1924 he was supreme and unchallenged.
正是哈特创造了西部片的基本模式，并设计了他在每部影片中所扮演的主人公形象——"好坏人"：或是因偶然机缘成为侠义亡命之徒，或是诚实却遭人陷害的牛仔，或是因恶毒流言而遭人怀疑的警长；简言之，即一个与自身及西部荒野环境抗争的孤独个体。
It was Hart who created the basic formula of the Western film, and devised the protagonist he played in every film he made, the good-bad man, the accidental, noble outlaw, or the honest, but framed cowboy, or the sheriff made suspect by vicious gossip; in short, the individual in conflict with himself and his frontier environment.
与好莱坞大多数同时代人不同，哈特对旧西部确实有所了解。
Unlike most of his contemporaries in Hollywood, Hart actually knew something of the old West.
他童年时曾生活在那个世界，而那时西部已经开始消逝；他塑造的英雄人物深深植根于他的记忆与经历，以及那消逝边疆的历史与神话之中。尽管美国历史上没有哪个时期或地方曾被如此荒诞地浪漫化，但神话与现实确实在至少一个领域携手相遇，那就是个人与不断蚕食的文明之间的冲突。
He had lived in it as a child when it was already disappearing, and his hero was firmly rooted in his memories and experiences, and in both the history and the mythology of the vanished frontier, And although no period or place in American history has been more absurdly romanticized, myth and reality did join hands in at least one arena, the conflict between the individual and encroaching civilization.
那些惯于与自然力和印第安人抗争以求生存的男人们，面对政客、银行家和商人时感到茫然无措，又被栅栏、法律和陌生的禁忌规范所撂倒。
Men accustomed to struggling for survival against the elements and Indians were bewildered by politicians, bankers and businessmen, and unhorsed by fences, laws and alien taboos.
哈特的"好坏人"始终是个局外人，始终是被剥夺权利者之一；如果他认为有必要在途中开枪打死一名警长或抢劫一家银行，他早期的观众也觉得易于理解和原谅，尤其是当最终正是哈特克服了来犯的印第安人的时候。
Hart's good-bad man was always an outsider, always one of the disinherited, and if he found it necessary to shoot a sheriff or rob a bank along the way, his early audiences found it easy to understand and forgive, especially when it was Hart who, in the end, overcame the attacking Indians.
二十世纪第二个十年里的观众，发现逃往那个生活虽艰辛却相对简单的年代令人心旷神怡。
Audiences in the second decade of the twentieth century found it pleasant to escape to a time when life, though hard, was relatively simple.
我们至今依然如此；生活在一个未经宣战的侵略、战争、虚伪、欺诈、无政府状态以及迫在眉睫的毁灭都是日常生活的一部分的世界里，我们都渴望一套可以遵循的生活准则。
We still do; living in a world in which undeclared aggression, war, hypocrisy, chicanery, anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by.