The Prairie

Plot synopsis:
The story opens with Ishmael, his family, Ellen and Abiram slowly making their way across the virgin prairies of the Midwest looking for a homestead, just two years after the Louisiana Purchase, and during the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They meet the trapper (Natty Bumppo), who has left his home in New York state to find a place where he cannot hear the sound of people cutting down the forests. In the years between his other adventures and this novel, he tells us only that he has walked all the way to the Pacific Ocean and seen all the land between the coasts (a heroic feat, considering Lewis and Clark hadn’t yet completed the same trek). That night, a band of Teton warriors steal all of Ishmael’s animals, stranding the immigrants. The doctor returns the next morning along with his donkey. The trapper helps the family relocate their wagons, including one with mysterious contents, to a nearby butte where they will be safer when the Tetons return. Middleton joins the group when he stumbles upon the trapper and Paul. Before they return to the butte, Ishmael and his family go looking for his eldest son, Asa, whom they find murdered. The trapper, Paul, and Middleton return to camp, find Inez whom Abiram and Ishmael had been keeping captive, and flee with her and Ellen. Ishmael chases them until the Tetons capture the Trapper and his crew. They escape the Tetons, and then Ishmael forms an alliance with the Indians. The Indians attempt to recapture the trapper by surrounding them with a prairie fire, but the trapper lights a backfire and saves everyone. They meet up with Hard-heart, a Pawnee Indian who survived the fire wrapped in a buffalo skin, and attempt to escape to his village. The Tetons capture them. Ishmael demands the trapper, Inez, and Ellen for helping the Tetons but is denied and turned away. Mahtoree intends to take Inez and Ellen for his new wives. Le Balafre attempts to spare Hard-heart’s life by making Hard-heart his son. Hard-heart refuses, kills Weucha, and flees the village. When Hard-heart’s Pawnee warriors attack the Teton village, the trapper and his friends escape, only to be captured by Ishmael. The trapper is accused of Asa’s death until Abiram’s guilt is discovered. Abiram is executed, and Ishmael’s family returns east without Inez, Ellen, or the doctor. Middleton, Inez, Paul and Ellen travel back to Louisiana and Kentucky, respectively, while the trapper joins a Pawnee village located on a tributary of the Missouri River. Middleton and Paul return just in time to witness the trapper's noble death and bury him.

Tags: insanity, romantic

Review:
An Oddball "Find". Admittedly, the 60-minutes is not for all tastes, especially those expecting a conventional western. The movie is, however, an oddly atmospheric tribute to its director, Frank Wisbar, who also helmed the moodily exotic Strangler of the Swamp (1946). He was clearly an artistic moviemaker dwelling in the anonymous depths in the manner of the better-known Edgar Ulmer.The story's about an 1803 Kentucky family traveling west in a wagon to settle in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The family patriarch is something of an unyielding tyrant, escaping civilization so he can live by his own rules and laws. On the way across Indian land, they pick up a newly orphaned young woman (Aubert) who becomes an immediate attraction for the family's many young men. They also encounter a government mapmaker (Baxter), who knows the prairie ropes but also represents what Dad's wanting to escape from. Various rivalries and a mysterious murder form the movie's remainder.But what makes the movie memorable, I think, are the visuals. Working with a shoestring budget, Wisbar has basically one flat prairie set overgrown with tall grass, along with an all- encompassing moody sky. Together, these compose a strange setting unlike anything I've seen. It's like being inside a teacup that's upside-down on a grassy table top. People and wagon move through the tall grass that somehow appears to consume them with each step. The only variations are occasional campsites, but these too, are menaced by the surrounding prairie. Wisbart has, in effect, taken a severe handicap, the single set, and turned it into an exotic world of its own. Once you've seen it, I don't think you'll forget it. Also, catch the many imaginative camera angles that lift things beyond the conventional, including the transition into the psychology of guilt that comes at the end.All in all, I think the movie is a "find" for folks looking for obscure oddities. I'm not claiming it's a "gem" since the acting is uneven, at best, while the storyline is nothing special. It is a movie, however, whose visuals have stayed with me for 60-some years. And, to my knowledge, it's never appeared on TV during that time, which likely accounts for my being the only person so far to review it. Still, I'm really glad to be able to tout the movie's singular virtues to a hopefully wider audience. I'm just sorry director Wisbar moved back to Germany, likely discouraged by the subterranean budgets of his projects. As this film shows, he was clearly a man of unusual visual talent.(In passing—I got my DVD from w.w.w.MoviesUnlimited.com The only venue I've seen the film available on.)