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The Far Horizons marked Fred MacMurray's return to the Paramount lot where he started his career to co-star with up and coming Charlton Heston in a story of the Lewis&Clark expedition. A landmark event in American history, the story itself strangely has been ignored by Hollywood except for this version. And it doesn't do the journey justice.

But we have to remember that the film is based on a fictional historical novel Sacajawea of the Shoshonis. So the romance between Donna Reed as Sacajawea and Heston as Clark just never happened. In real life she was the wife of Charbonneau the French trapper played by Alan Reed who did not behave as despicably as portrayed here.

Merieweather Lewis was in fact Thomas Jefferson's secretary and Jefferson sending him west to head the expedition was no less than having Tom's eyes and ears right there on the trail. Lewis was a most intense fellow and he would be a suicide in 1809, Clark outlived him by many years. But one thing he did not have was any romantic rivalry with William Clark over the character that Barbara Hale plays, a Virginia planter's daughter and neighbor of Jefferson at Monticello.

As this film would have it, Lewis was mad because Clark had two girls and he had none. The two faced a lot of problems on the trip, but jealousy over romance wasn't one of them.

The film was produced by William Pine and William Thomas who co-produced a whole bunch of B films for Paramount. Bill Pine learned his trade being an associate producer with Cecil B. DeMille. The film was shot on location and bears no small resemblance to some DeMille productions and even more so to King Vidor's classic Northwest Passage.

Still though I wish we just had a straight account of the trip without the phony romance.

This is not a movie that is accurate historically. The great thing is seeing a well known cast in color making the thing entertaining. While Barbara Hale is best known as Della Street, Perry Mason's Secretary, she is a second banana here in her role as Julia. She appears in the early part of the film and at the end.

What is interesting is that Donna Reed, Fred MacMurray, & Charlton Heston all get equal billing at a time when women's rights really had not started. In fact, Reed is so good that I didn't even realize it was here until I checked the cast list. This is not the typical 1950's film to be sure.

Trouble is that the film really has no chance to get to the true story of Lewis & Clark as it is too busy with fictional relationships to have time. William Demerest (Uncle Charlie on My Three Sons) joins Fred here as he would later on TV. Considering how much fishing Fred is known to have done, I bet he got some in on breaks on this river location shooting.

The movie is entertainment, just not a classic. Paramounts Vista Vision hasn't hurt the quality of the film photography over the years either.

Turbulent adventure set against the rich ,romantic tapestry of early Louisiana state . United States has just acquired Louisiana from France . As President Thomas Jefferson (Herbert Heyes) assigns a risked expedition led by U.S. Army Captain Meriwether Lewis (Fred MacMurray) and Lt. William Clark (Charlton Heston) as second in command and they join forces other mountain men to enter virgin trapping territory but must contend with resentful traitors , savage Indians (Larry Pennell , Eduardo Noriega) and several other things . The expeditionary group is sent to survey the territory and go where no white man has gone before . They have to overcome the dangerous land with the help of Sacajawea (Donna Reed) .

Pioneer epic with great stars , gorgeous cinematography by Daniel L. Fapp and majestic landscapes filmed in spectacular scenarios . The movie is partially based on real events , narrating the story about the far country discovery , some explorers came to find the precious land through the dangerous ways , large plentiful rivers , violence and ambition that came with them . This colorful film contains beautiful scenery , tempestuous Indian attacks , war , lawless raids , a love story , intrepid men and women ; at last , in all its wild , brave magnificence , the picture of valiant scouts . Well paced , elegiac Western , including marvelous landscapes from Grand Teton National Park, Moose, Wyoming . Interesting historical/drama/Western is slightly marred by the heavily relationship between Heston and Donna Reed . This poetic film focuses the insertion of human being into nature and with the "Native Americans" . This is a lyric Western about conquerors , it's a homage to integration between human being and Nature . The whole piece of adventure teems with emotion , thrills , exotic atmosphere and being pretty entertaining . It's a medium budget film with good actors , technicians , production values and pleasing results . Charlton Heston gives a good acting as a rugged scout who falls in love for an Indian woman , Heston along with Donna Reed form a memorable couple . However , the lead roles , Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston , were originally offered to Gary Cooper and John Wayne, but Cooper vehemently rejected the offer . Sensitive as well as enjoyable musical score by Hans J. Salter . The motion picture was professionally directed by Rudolph Mate .

The real deeds were the followings : The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May, 1804 from St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, consisting of a select group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. Their perilous journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. The primary objective was to explore and map the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it. The campaign's secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Indian tribes. With maps, sketches and journals in hand, the expedition returned to St. Louis to report their findings to Jefferson . Regarding Sacagawea character , she was a Shoshone Indian woman who arrived with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau on the expedition to the Pacific Ocean . Though she has been discussed in literature frequently, much of the information is exaggeration or fiction. Scholars say she did notice some geographical features, but "Sacagawea...was not the guide for the Expedition, she was important to them as an interpreter and in other ways. The sight of a woman and her infant son would have been reassuring to some indigenous nations, and she played an important role in diplomatic relations by talking to chiefs, easing tensions, and giving the impression of a peaceful mission.In his writings, Meriwether Lewis presented a somewhat negative view of her, though Clark had a higher regard for her, and provided some support for her children in subsequent years.

"The Far Horizons", made in 1955, is based on the 1803 to 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to discover a water route from St Louis to the Pacific ocean. It is a nice vehicle for the three stars of the movie.

Fred McMurray had already made 70 movies, and Donna Reed 35 movies, when they made this one. Charlton Heston had only made 13 prior, and a age 30, this one was made right before he became a giant star in the "biblical" series of movies.

Shortly after this movie, McMurray went on to star in the TV series "My Three Sons", and likewise Donna Reed in the "Donna Reed Show" TV series. In this movie, at age 34, she plays the teenage Sacajawea, and does it very well.

Recall that in the 50s most western movies played on the "savage Indian" theme and this one fits that description too. The writer and director took lots of "literary license" with the Lewis and Clark story so it is not to be considered historically accurate. Still, it gives a good, meaningful dramatization of a great historical event in the USA.

In addition, most of the journey filming was done at or near the original Lewis and Clark trail, and the movie contains great scenery of mountains and rivers.

Overall I found the movie very enjoyable, 7 of 10, and fun to watch such veteran actors in a movie almost 50 years ago. And especially since the USA just this year (2000) released the new one-dollar coin commemorating Sacajawea.

A crucial event in American history is rendered dull and unexciting by Hollywood convention; the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition which in the early 1800s conquered unclaimed territory for the ever-growing United States. Production values are glossy and there are a few action highlights, but the handling is uninspired and the slowly-paced film emerges an undistinguished effort overall.

Casting is variable: Fred MacMurray makes for a staid Lewis but Charlton Heston's Clark is, as ever, at home in such larger-than-life surroundings; Donna Reed (as an Indian squaw!) and Barbara Hale provide the none-too-convincing romantic interest - which actually takes up a good deal of the running-time (before the expedition, both men love Hale but she prefers Heston; when the latter meets up with Reed, they fall for each other - but complications of the boring variety arise when it's revealed that she's been promised by the tribe which has abducted her to a villainous French trapper/guide and, even when she finally escapes and goes back to her people, she's spoken for by a rash young Indian brave!). This allows Heston to engage in fisticuffs and he even falls out with MacMurray, but the audience's interest is never more than dimly aroused; however, veteran William Demarest is on hand as a level-headed sergeant who actually keeps the company together during such trying times.

Anyway, the film is watchable enough in itself - though it's better approached, perhaps, as a Western rather than a widescreen spectacular (with which Heston would soon come to be identified)...and, in any case, it's miles behind such celebrated 'epics' of American colonialism as John Ford's DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939) and King Vidor's NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940).