Wagon Master

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a prelude showing a murderous robbery by the outlaw Clegg family (the patriarch Shiloh (Charles Kemper) and his four "boys"). The credits then follow the prelude, which was a stylistic innovation at its time.
A Mormon wagon train led by the Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) around 1880 has reached Crystal City, and needs a wagon master to lead it further to its destination—the San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory. Their wagon train is being expelled from Crystal City by the townspeople there, and at the last minute horse traders Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey, Jr.) take the wagon master job.
After resuming its journey west, the train finds and adds the wagon of a medicine show troupe, who, en route to California, have become stranded without water. The onward passage of the wagon train is marked by the beginnings of romances between Travis and Denver (Joanne Dru), a female entertainer with the medicine troupe, and between Sandy and a Mormon's daughter, and also by a Mormon square dance celebrating a successful desert passage, and by a pow-wow dance with a band of Navajo. All goes well enough until the Cleggs, fleeing a posse from Crystal City, force themselves into the wagon train. The train surmounts an encounter with the posse, a washed out trail blocking the way west, and ultimately a violent confrontation with the homicidal Cleggs.
The film's conclusion leaves the wagon train and its wagon master on the verge of entry into the San Juan country. There is a final montage, which Richard Jameson characterizes as follows: "Wagon Master has scant interest in the prosaic, being preeminently a musical and a poem. ... it's the final montage that lifts the movie into another realm entirely. There are shots we've seen before—landmarks, vistas, the communal dance—but also shots we haven't. ... It's a subtler, deeper variation on the closing, transfiguring memory images of How Green Was My Valley (1941)."

Tags: murder

Review:
Other reviewers have described Wagonmaster splendidly.But I would like to look at it's main lead, Ben Johnson.I was 10 when Wagonmaster came out, and by then Johnson had become a hero to us boys in St.Ives,Cornwall.Johnson had worked his way up to the Travis Blue role the hard way; from being a rodeo man to John Waynes sidekick.We were fascinated by his horsemanship in his early roles, and were completely sold by his neat act of jumping off a horse whilst it was still moving.Very soon, every lad at school was Ben Johnson, as we charged around on pretend horses.
Careys' exuberance somehow balances Johnsons nonchalant style, and they epitomize the young West, it'sdangers, hopes and sorrows.You just know, that as long as they are around, everything is gonna be OK.For me Ben Johnson is as much a part of the screen West as any of the Western stars, like John Wayne and Gary Cooper.
In Crystal City, a group of Mormons hire the horse traders Travis (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey Jr.) as wagon masters to lead their caravan to San Juan River.
When the wagon train is near to their destination, the Clegg boys threaten the settlers, forcing Sandy and Travis to take an attitude."Wagon Master" is another great western of John Ford.
Mainly because it's the only one that is based on a story written by John Ford himself, the story that was elaborated by Frank Nugent and director's son  Patrick Ford and turned into a screenplay, and because of director's personal opinion regarding it, Wagon Master is the film John Ford called the one which `came closest to being what I had wanted to achieve', to say so is not to say a little, but as Ford confessed once to Lindsay Anderson, his favourite was nonetheless My Darling Clementine and not any other.
The film starts with two friends cowboys Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey Jr) being hired to be Wagon Masters or guides for a caravan of Mormon settlers who are headed to Silver Valley, a place that's for them like a promised land.
Two drifters named Travis Blue (Ben Johnson ) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey Jr ) are hired by leaders of a Mormons congregation (Ward Bond, Russell Simpson) as wagon masters of an expedition toward Utah frontier.
Meanwhile Travis falls in love with Denver and the wagon train heading for the promised land.This classic picture ranks as one of the best of John Ford's work.
Excellent starring cast as Ben Johnson - formerly remembered as the sergeant in 'she wore a yellow ribbon' , here his first main role and years later achieved the best supporting actor Academy Award for 'The last Picture Show' -, he is awesome as roaming cowhand who join a congregation migrating West.
He is not the wagon master, that role is played by Johnson, but because of this movie he was later given the role of wagon master in the classic television series "Wagon Train." Ironically one of the bad guys in "Wagon Master," James Arness, would star in the hit television series "Gunsmoke" on a rival network to "Wagon Train." Ward Bond plays the leader of the Mormons heading west who often backslides to his sinning days by cussing only to be called down by fellow Mormon Adam Perkins (Russell Simpson).
Darwell and Simpson were famous for playing Ma and Pa Joad in Ford's classic version of the John Steinbeck novel "The Grapes of Wrath."Another of the great character actors in Ford's company was Hank Worden, who plays one of Uncle Shiloh Clegg's notoriously mean but not too bright outlaw sons.
He was still making movies when he died.The wagon master Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and his partner Sandy (Harry Carey Jr.) are horse traders who never take their job seriously, having a lot of fun along the way, especially with the local sheriff.
Jones' most famous song, not in this film, is the much recorded "Ghost Riders In The Sky." The Sons of the Pioneers do the background singing in "Wagon Master." This adds to the overall impact of wagons rolling west.It should also be noted that the acclaimed Native American athlete Jim Thorpe from Oklahoma plays the role of a Navajo leader.
"One hundred years have come and gone since 1849"intone the Sons of the Pioneers over the titles of the movie ,thus establishing what we are about to see is a reminiscence of the days when the West was opened up.The movie is ballad heavy indeed,and could be seen as the movie that most precisely mirrors Ford's love of music,which is shown as a unifying force bringing communities together .Ford was to claim it was his favourite movie-one which,together with "The Fugitive"and "The Sun Shines Bright"saw him most accurately achieve what he set out to do It is an intimate epic whose episodic narrative focuses on the exploits of a Mormon wagon train leaving the inhospitable climes of the city to seek out the "promised land"near the San Juan River.They are guided by two horse traders,played by those dependable Ford repertory company members Ben Johnson and Harry Carry Jnr .Indians are encountered but ,uniquely for a wagon train movie they are friendly and there is no grand scale Indian attack.Instead the chief menace comes from an outlaw gang headed by the truly evil Uncle Silas(a mesmerising performance by Charles Kempson)and featuring rare unsympathetic roles from James Arness and Hank Worden.It is they who bring trouble on the train and menace its inhabitants.The casting is perfect.Ford normally relied on iconographic peformers like Wayne ,Fonda or Stewart but by casting Johnson and Carry he chose the "right size"actors 'ones who are more able to suggest the decent ordinary men who will lay it on the line for the right cause and can persuade an audience they just might lose Good to see Alan Mowbray as an itinerant showman reprising the type of role he played so memorably in My Darling Clementine and Ward Bond as the worldly Mormon leader is fine.Only two problems for me with the movie-love interest in the form of Joanna Dru did not convince and I could not believe Mormons were as liberal as depicted here.Minor quibbles apart it is a beautiful movie with atmospheric monochrome photography and a love for the material and the era it celebrates shining through.Elsewhere on this site-its Message boards to be exact-Ford detractors have started their pettifogging sniping.I would like to think this movie would silence their iconoclastic jejeune ravings but probably not.
But the day of the B western was drawing to a close and Johnson and Carey had great careers as two fine character actors.Ward Bond plays Elder Wiggs leader of the Mormons.
It is a western of exceptional beauty and narrative purity, well acted by  members of Ford's 'stock company', including Jane Darwell, Alan Mowbray, Ward Bond,and Harry Carey, Jr.Like almost all of Ford's films,it is a meditation on freedom and community.
There might be a certain visual poetic quality to Ford's frontier fairy-tale about the team spirit of the American people, but narrative-wise this one's even slighter than the director's usual Western efforts without gaining some of their intensity.That said, the characters - played enthusiastically by a cast of supporting actors - are quite likable and there's a relaxed air to the proceedings.
WAGON MASTER has been justly praised as one of director John Ford's most poetic films, with its vivid evocation of a lost world of a wagon train traveling west in the late nineteenth century, carrying a group of Mormons led by Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) and guided by two horse-traders (Ben Johnson, Harry Carey jnr.)In view of its release-date (1950), however, it is possible to see the film as a lament for a lost world of community, where people of different interests learn to co-exist with one another: the horse- traders set aside their buccaneering lifestyles and agree to guide the Mormons, while the Mormons offer them their hospitality in return.
WAGON MASTER makes much the same point, and further suggests that those who appear to be the most friendly turn out to be the most dangerous.Ford emphasizes the importance of community not only through the screenplay, but through the musical score (by Richard Hageman) and the songs, which evoke a prelapsarian world in which people's first loyalty is to their God and their fellow human beings rather than themselves.
At the other end you have ones like Wagon Master, where there is barely a homestead on view amid the wilderness.Director John Ford normally thrived on the "bit of both" Westerns, shooting the interiors with an emphasis on their being small and confined, and then contrasting this with the wide open exteriors, which appeared both exciting and dangerous.
John Ford's stock of character actors, including Harry Carey, Jr., Jane Darwell, Russell Simpson and Hank Worden, provide ample support, as does eerily silent James Arness, a member of the outlaw Clegg clan that joins up with the wagon train.
The year 1950 saw two very different and interesting westerns: 'The Gunfighter' by Henry King, and 'Wagon Master' by John Ford.
It is, perhaps, a very spiritual story, though not promoting any particular religion, for even the non-Mormon cowboys portrayed by Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. act in kind and noble ways toward everybody in the story, regardless of religious affiliation and beliefs, and go out of their way to promote tolerance and charity when the wagon train comes upon the stranded medicine show people.
It's very posed, very staged - but in the manner of dreamy poetry.******** Wagon Master (4/19/50) John Ford ~ Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Ward Bond, Joanne Dru. Great performances by Ben Johnson and Ward Bond.
It stars Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, Harry Carey Jr. and Joanne Dru. Richard Hageman scores the music and Bert Glennon is the photographer.
All is going well until the arrival of the Cleggs, a family of criminals on the run from the law...Filmed in black & white, shot in under a month and made for under a million dollars, Wagon Master is a classic John Ford picture.
I loved the film's story, cinematography as well as the superb casting of Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. in the lead roles along with the ever dependable Ward Bond.
Along the way, they encounter a murderous family of thugs who menace the peaceful folks and put their pilgrimage in jeopardy.WAGON MASTER is what I would term a "little" John Ford film, as it obviously did not have the budget or scope of some of his other Westerns.
Long-time Ford stock character actors Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr. and Ward Bond have been elevated to starring roles and perhaps the one who came of as "the" lead was probably Johnson--though the other two got nearly as much screen time and focus.
Ben Johnson and Harry Cary, Jr. are fine actors, but they feel as though they should be playing second-fiddle to somebody, and Ward Bond's cursing Mormon elder, while potentially a candidate for such a role, isn't given quite enough focus to satisfactorily fit the bill.In 'Wagon Master,' Ford seems so comfortable with his tried-and-tested Western formula that any character development is largely glossed over.
This apparent harmony is thrown into disarray by the arrival of Uncle Shiloh's gun-toting outlaws, who exploit the lawlessness of the Western frontier but ultimately lose out to the noble cowboys who "only ever drew on snakes."Ford reportedly considered Wagon Master among the favourite of his films, and perhaps this has something to do with the absence of big names like John Wayne or Henry Fonda.
Despite being undoubtedly well-made, I can't help feeling that this film only does well what other Ford pictures did even better: the terrific majesty of the the Western frontier was presented more beautifully in 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon'; the romances and friendly squabbles among community members took greater prominence in 'Fort Apache'; the early relations with Native Americans, only hinted at here, were more thoroughly examined in 'The Searchers (1956)'; the bold pioneering spirit of the early settlers was explored more movingly (albeit by Henry Hathaway and George Marshall) in 'How the West Was Won (1962).' 'Wagon Master' is pure John Ford, but it isn't a landmark..
I knew nothing of westerns then but recognized Ben Johnson from the movie "Mighty Joe Young." What attracted me to "Wagon Master" were the great songs sung by the "Sons of the Pioneers." Merian C.
Steiner would later win an Oscar for the theme for "Gone With the Wind.' Cooper was also the producer of "Mighty Joe Young." If you remember, music was important to the big ape which would only respond to the sound of Stephan Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer." In 1947, Cooper would partner with John Ford, who directed "Wagon Master." Of all of Ford's famous westerns, this one is my favorite which features his brother Francis and a sullen Janes Arness..
This Western is about a Mormon pioneer wagon train heading to the San Juan River in Utah with the help of two horse traders.
Like many of John Ford's films "Wagon Master" is a bit uneven.
A typical 'wagons west' movie but made very watchable by the typical John Ford cast: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Ward Bond, Hank Worden and a brief appearance by the immortal Jim Thorpe.
although i liked this Western,i do have to say,it's not one of my favourite John Ford Westerns.for me,it just lacks a certain something that most of his other films(the ones i have seen anyway)possess)i'm nit sure what that something is.it's not something tangible.anyway,the gist of the story is about a Mormon wagon train which is being used by a band of outlaws as a hideout from a pursuing posse.Ford employs a lot of his regulars here.there are some interesting characters,some nice scenery,a bit of action,and excitement.it all adds up to a watchable experience.it's certainly not boring.just not quite up to the usual John Ford standard.for me,Wagon Master is a 7/10.
It has a documentary-like feel to it as it traces the journey West of a party of Mormons and it may be the most authentic looking of all Ford's films, (it's on par with "The Sun Shines Bright" which he made a couple of years later).There is a plot of sorts, (a group of bank robbers join the wagon train at one point), but the film's dramatic highlights are almost incidental.
The splendid performances of Ford's stock company, (Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr, Ward Bond, Jane Darwell etc), adds considerably to the film's authenticity while the nearest the film gets to a full-bodied star performance is Joanne Dru's Denver.
As always, Ford's Monument Valley cinematography is outstanding, and combined with a good story, excellent acting (especially by Johnson), fine horse work, and memorable characters, makes this one of Ford's best Westerns..
Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr. play Travis and Sandy, two amiable young horse traders who eventually agree to act as guides for a Mormon procession heading for San Juan.
Along the way, they will encounter an outlaw gang, headed by Uncle Shiloh (Charles Kemper), a medicine show including the lovely "Denver" (Joanne Dru) and a dubious "doctor" (Alan Mowbray), and a tribe of Navajo Indians.There's also lots of enticing scenery in this John Ford Western, which benefits from its plethora of entertaining characters, story twists, and moral dilemmas.
They are also backed up by some great supporting players: Ward Bond as the Mormon elder who is more or less leading the procession, Jane Darwell as the upbeat Sister Ledyard, Ruth Clifford as Fleuretty, Russell Simpson as uptight elder Adam Perkins, James Arness and Hank Worden as members of Shilohs' gang, and the legendary Indian athlete Jim Thorpe as the leader of the Navajos.There a handful of songs crooned by the Sons of the Pioneers, and while some of them may indeed be a bit "schmaltzy", there's some truly catchy music as well.
The story is a simple one about a wagon train travelling cross country and the encounters with various folk, both good and bad (typically bad) en route.The film features Ben Johnson in the lead role and he plays a Mormon.
A bunch of familiar faces play in support (James Arness, Ward Bond, the delightful Hank Worden) but in the end, WAGON MASTER is the kind of film that passes you by rather than truly entertains..
Wagon Master (1950)*** (out of 4) Drifters (Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr.) ride into a small town to sell their horses when they come across a group of Mormons being ran out of town.
But "Wagon Master" is a tender, nostalgic look backward...Filled with traditional Western songs rendered by The Sons of the Pioneers, it tells of the trek West to Utah (in 1879) of a Mormon wagon train led by Ward Bond in the role of Elder Wiggs, and two young horse traders (Ben Johnson and Harry Carey Jr).
Travis and Sandy(Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.)are horse traders coerced into selling their animals to a Mormon group and guiding them across the frontier to a settlement.
As with "Rio Grande", there is more than the usual amount of background music and music sung by the principals for a Ford film, with The Sons of the Pioneers supplying much of the former.In support, we have familiar Ward Bond, as leader of the Mormons, later to star in the "Wagon Train" TV series.
By now you know the basic outline of the story - horse traders Travis (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey Jr.) take the job of guiding a Mormon wagon train West to their 'promised land' and along the way encounter a variety of trials and interesting characters, most notably the outlaw Clegg family.Anyone can enjoy this movie.
An underrated western by John Ford, "Wagon Master" watches as a group of Mormons trek their way toward Utah.