Editing Hell's Hinges (section)

===Initial reviews in 1916===
[[File:Hell's Hinges - 1916.webm|thumb|''Hell's Hinges'']]
When ''Hell's Hinges'' was released, the reception of the film among New York critics was so positive that the producer bought space in newspapers around the country to reprint the reviews.<ref>{{cite news|title=Critics Go Wild Over Ince's 'Hell's Hinges': New York Press Says It Combines All the Elements That Make for Dramatic Success (advertisement)|publisher=The Evening Tribune, Albert Lea, MN|date=1916-05-11}}</ref>  The following are excerpts from those reviews:
* ''New York Telegraph'': "Dramatic suspense and punch, coupled with artistic treatment, are the most conspicuous characteristics of 'Hell's Hinges' ... [A] swaggering, hard-drinking, fast-shooting, all-round 'bad' man, with good stuff under a rough exterior, furnished Mr. Hart with a vehicle in which his talents show to best advantage."
* ''New York American'': "A well-balanced supporting cast, a lavish production and marked finesse in treatment combines to make 'Hell's Hinges' an unusual offering."
* ''New York Press'': "Gunplay and religion lubricate 'Hell's Hinges' ... It is a film drama that combines all the elements that make for success ... Reckless riding, double-handed shooting from the hip, a dance hall of the [[Bret Harte]] description and, finally a conflagration that gives a truly [[Gehenna]]-like finish to the place known as Hell's Hinges ... No actor before the screen has been able to give as sincere and true a touch to the Westerner as Hart. He rides in a manner indigenous to the soil, he shoots with the real knack and he acts with that sense of artistry that hides the acting." 
* ''New York Sun'': "It depicts strikingly the storm and stress of existence in a Western town with a final scene of the shooting up of a gambling den, which aroused the spectators to a high degree of approval."
* ''New York Herald'': "William S. Hart is beginning to typify certain things in the film world. He is ever stoical, slow to anger, but possessed of the powers of a hundred men when aroused. He is a big, bluff, wholesome fellow, whose ideas are frequently a little peculiar, and he goes about matters in exclusively his own way. But when the showdown arrives, depend upon it, William S. Hart will be found lined up on the side of righteousness. This week, for example, Hart is appearing at the Knickerbocker Theatre in 'Hell's Hinges.  Hart has the opportunity to do some good riding, to carry a drunken minister on his back, to shoot the villain and some sub-villains, to set the town afire and to marry the minister's sister. The Kaiser himself has appeared in pictures and done less."
* ''New York Herald'': "'Hell's Hinges,' one of those traditional places on the frontier of the Wild West, 'where there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can get a thirst,' was pictured in the most lurid manner."

Grace Kingsley of the ''Los Angeles Times'' gave the actors high marks.  She credited Hart with doing his "usual excellent work" and found Glaum to be "a really fascinating vampire."<ref name=King/>  Kingsley paid special note to Standing's performance as the reverend, calling it "one of the most subtle, but at the same time of the most sincere bits of film acting of his entire career," a performance exhibiting "intelligence and imagination ... in the very highest degree."<ref name=King/>  Kingsley found the film to be "marvelously well done" but took exception to the would-be folksy western dialect in the title cards:

<blockquote>C. Gardner Sullivan appears to have written 'Hell's Hinges' for the purpose of allowing us to look our fill on fire and fights.  Certain it is the thing is marvelously well done.  There is a burning dance hall with men and women entrapped, which fairly makes you gasp, and there is a 'beau-oo-tiful' free-for-all fight between the sheep and the goats of 'Hell's Hinges.'  All this is lovely enough in its way to make for forgiveness of the dialect of the subtitles, a dialect which 'never was on land or sea.'<ref name=King>{{cite news|author=Grace Kingsley|title=Well Done: Lurid Film Drama; Thrilling Fires and Fights in 'Hell's Hinges'|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=1916-03-06}}</ref></blockquote>

The title cards includes lines such as "When women like her say there is a God, there is one, and he sure must be worth trailin' with".

The publication ''[[The Moving Picture World|Moving Picture World]]'' gave the film a mixed review:
<blockquote>... William S. Hart should try himself out in some other role, or, at least, in some more decided variation of story in which he quite regularly appears. Then, too, he might well be a little more human and less heroic with no loss of sympathy in the average audience. The old fashioned theatrical hero fails to win with a large percentage of the modern audience... Brilliant in subtitle, strong in treatment with occasional notes of true pathos, the marks of creative ability and sure craftmanship are there, but more of the material is outworn--the genius of author and director barely save it--and the fire scenes, elaborate as they are, finally cause interest to flag from too much repetition... The cast is without flaw.<ref name="MPW">{{cite news |date=1916-02-19 |title=Review of ''Hell's Hinges'' |url=https://archive.org/details/movingpicturewor27newy/page/1146/mode/2up |access-date=2024-06-29 |work=The Moving Picture World |publisher=}}</ref></blockquote>The publication further noted that Ince "is at his best when holding close to revelations of the human mind and heart."