Riddle Gawne
1918 film by William S. Hart, Lambert Hillyer
Riddle Gawne is a 1918 American silent Western film directed by William S. Hart and Lambert Hillyer, and featuring Hart, Katherine MacDonald and Lon Chaney. The film was co-produced by Hart and Thomas H. Ince. The screenplay was written by Charles Alden Seltzer from his earlier novel The Vengeance of Jefferson Gawne. Chaney historian Jon C. Mirsalis claims that Hart contributed greatly to the screenplay but all other sources credit the writing of the screenplay solely to Seltzer.
Considered lost for decades, two of the five reels were found to have survived in a Russian archive and are now kept in the film archive of the Library of Congress. It is unknown if Chaney appears in those two reels. A still exists showing Chaney (as Hame Bozzam) preparing to shoot the unconscious Riddle Gawne in the head. A 1918 advertisement for the showing of the film at Sid Grauman's "Million Dollar Theater" in downtown Los Angeles exists, as well as a publicity photo showing the film's major players in a group shot.
Plot
Riddle Gawne is a man who seeks vengeance on the man who killed his brother Wesley. Before dying, his brother had revealed his killer's name as "Watt Hyat".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Riddle Gawne” is 1918 film by William S. Hart, Lambert Hillyer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Riddle, Gawne and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1918 film by William S. Hart, Lambert Hillyer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7332431. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Riddle Gawne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.