Wagon Master
by John Ford
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ben Johnson, Charles Kemper, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward BondDirector: John Ford
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Bert Glennon
Producer: John Ford
Writer: John Ford
Producer: Lowell J. Farrell
Producer: Merian C. Cooper
Writer: Frank S. Nugent
Writer: Patrick Ford
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-09-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- The rivers are wide and rapid. The desert is vast and unforgiving. And when the trail turns craggy, men use pickaxes to dig grooves for the wagon wheels. Mother Nature can be overcome, but human nature remains deadly and unpredictable: Outlaws are using the Mormon wagon train as a hideout from a pursuing posse. John Ford s Wagon Master is one of the legendary filmmaker s personal favorites, a visu
Movie Reviews of Wagon Master
Movie Review: A forgotten gem
Summary: 5 Stars
As the Swallows & Amazons might say, "Three million cheers!" that this undeservedly neglected John Ford Western has made it to DVD. The director's own admitted favorite and certainly one of mine, it's something many people might overlook because (a) it's in black and white, and (2) its biggest "name" is probably crusty Ward Bond (who went on to play a similar part, until his death, as Maj. Seth Adams in the classic TV series Wagon Train - The Complete First Season - Special Limited Edition - 39 episodes!), though "Gunsmoke" buffs may enjoy seeing James Arness in a non-speaking role as one of the outlaw Cleggs, and the famed Indian athlete Jim Thorpe has a part as an unspecified Navajo. But it really deserves your attention. This delightful story of two horse traders, Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey, Jr.), who agree to guide a company of 100 Mormons (led by Bond as Elder Wiggs) to the San Juan Valley, is at once a family film and an action epic, and as such should please just about everyone.
Travis and Sandy have just brought a string of horses into Crystal City when they meet Wiggs and his second-in-command, Adam Perkins (Russell Simpson), who've been invited out of the town as fast as they can depart. At first reluctant, Travis allows Sandy to persuade him that it's their duty to help "all those women and children," and agrees to the job, which will pay the two of them $600 for their horses and $100 for themselves. Sandy quickly falls for Adam's granddaughter, Miss Prudence (Kathleen O'Malley), and when the party comes across a stranded medicine show headed up by "Dr." A. Locksley Hall (Alan Mowbray), Travis too finds a girl, in the person of Miss Denver (Joanne Dru), a performer with the show--though she's far too worldly wise to admit any reciprocal attraction. Then, just as the combined groups are celebrating their conquest of a 40-mile "waterless scrape," they're joined by the outlaw Clegg family, Uncle Shiloh (Charles Kemper) and his four "boys," Reese (Fred Libby), Jesse (Mickey Simpson), Luke (Hank Worden), and Floyd (Arness). At first the Cleggs seem disposed to live and let live, especially after Dr. Hall, under pressure, takes a bullet out of Uncle Shiloh's shoulder; but when, the outfits having been invited to join a band of Navajos for a social dance, Reese attempts to force himself on an Indian girl and Wiggs, to protect his own people, orders the man flogged, things change. Uncle Shiloh is patient, though, and his revenge is both delayed and potentially tragic for the Mormons, leading to a sudden and explosive climax.
It's true that in using his beloved Monument Valley for a shooting location, Ford somewhat confuses the geographically oriented viewer: if Travis and Sandy acquired their horses in "Navajo country...southwest 'a here," as Travis says, and the Mormons must cross a "waterless scrape" of 40 miles or more to get where they're going (most likely NE New Mexico or SE Utah), they're probably following the Santa Fe Trail at least part of the way (to the Cimarron Crossing) and starting out somewhere in western Nebraska, which is high plain but not desert. It's also true that his scriptwriters, Frank Nugent and his own brother Patrick, erred slightly in implying that the Mormons were pacifists who didn't carry guns (in fact all Western Mormons excelled at riding, shooting, and dancing) and favored drab clothing (Quakers did, but Mormons were (and are) forbidden chiefly "deleterious substances" such as alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea). But there are so many more pluses than minuses to the film that you can overlook these errors. The characters alone are worth your time--the formerly-sinful Elder Wiggs, quiet Travis with his hint of a past ("I thought you never drew on a man." "That's right, sir. Only on snakes."), enthusiastic Sandy with his old-fashioned courtly manners, Dr. Hall and his troupe, cowhorn-tooting Sister Lidgett (Jane Darwell), and the sinister Cleggs most of all. There's plenty of humor of the old-fashioned clean and subtle kind, gorgeous scenery (it's a pity we don't see it in color), excellent performances all around, and some thrilling scenes such as the river crossing and Travis's flight from the Navajo party. (Johnson, who started out as a cowboy, was one of the best horsemen in Hollywood, and he proves it in at least two sequences.) This is a DVD that will stay on my shelves till the floor falls through.
Summary of Wagon Master
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