(Victor Schertzinger, US 1928, 80 min., 35mm)
A recent restoration from the Library of Congress, The Showdown finds George Bancroft playing against type as an honorable man. Cardan (Bancroft), a wildcat oil driller, looks after Sibyl Shelton (Evelyn Brent) when her husband leaves camp in the Mexican jungle to inspect some oil property. Also remaining behind are three men, all searching for oil and wealth: Kilgore (Leslie Fenton), Sibyl's brother-in-law, considered a weakling and a coward; Winter (Fred Kohler), a field scout for a big oil company; and Pickerell (Arnold Kent), a schemer. In Shelton's absence, Sibyl suffers a nervous breakdown caused by the heat, the jungle, the loneliness, and the men, of whose presence she is only too aware.
35mm print courtesy of Library of Congress.