La carovana dei mormoni

This little picture succeeds where many a big picture fails. Because it was a little picture, John Ford was not harassed by the studio big wigs. He was happier with this film than any other because he was able to do it his way. He was also able to use his repertoire of gifted character actors that had played such an important role in his past successes. Some of them such as Ben Johnson had been discovered by Ford and given opportunity to show their talents. Johnson was recruited by Ford because he was an authentic cowboy from Oklahoma who usually did his own stunt work. Years later he would win the coveted Academy Award for his brilliant performance in "The Last Picture Show." Ward Bond even outshines Ben Johnson in this movie. 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). When any bothersome situation arises Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) yells, "Blow your horn, Sister Ledeyard!" The Mormon sister, played to perfection by Jane Darwell, then blows so hard and loud that even the devil must have been shaken by the sound. 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. Worden would become famous a few years later for playing Mose in Ford's "The Searchers." Worden lived to be 91. 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. They get mixed up with a Mormon wagon train heading west. Ford's beloved Monument Valley is the setting for most of the film. The main reason for the teaming is a redheaded Mormon beauty Prudence Perkins (Kathleen O'Malley) who catches Sandy's eye. Along the way the train picks up a hoochie coochie show which includes a charlatan doctor (Alan Mowbray) and two soiled angels (Joanne Dru and Ruth Clifford). Also joining up along the way is the Clegg family, wanted for murder and armed robbery. Ford shows how arduous a journey west by wagon was in those days.

The songs in the film were written by Stan Jones of the legendary Sons of the Pioneers. Jones' writing was almost as good as that of Bob Nolan, who had previously done much of the writing for the group. 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. This was his last film appearance. He died not long after "Wagon Master" was released.

I never thought I'd be using a word like "charming" in connection with a Western. But the first half of Wagon Master strikes me as just that, charming. The colorful characters and set-ups blend together in shrewdly affable fashion. Of course, the opening hook features brief gunplay, but that's just to let the audience know that the movie will include traditional bad guys. Actually, there's much less gunplay than expected, though the second half is more tension filled than the first. Still, the eventual showdown is de-dramatized in atypical fashion.

To me, Ben Johnson makes an excellent westerner. His regional accent is perfect. He may not be a John Wayne icon, but neither does he compete with the story. After all, the wagon train's success amounts to a collective effort and not that of a single heroic figure. Also, Carey Jr. makes a good headstrong sidekick, good for a chuckle or two. And, yes, that is a young,, naturally blond, James Arness as one of the Cleggs, even if without any dialog.

Two things I really like about this Ford Western. The characters are colorful without becoming caricatures, plus the fact that it's filmed in b&w. Now, Technicolor would bring out the awesome beauty of the Moab locations, but also distract from the storyline. The b&w photography here is excellent, but has the important effect of bringing out the majesty of the surroundings without competing. It's a perfect setting for the movie's theme of a new land for a peaceable Mormon people. Note too, how the Navajo are treated with respect, and even acknowledged as victims of white men's thievery, but without piling it on. Note too that except for the opening scene the entire movie was shot on location. A real outdoor Western.

All in all, Ford blends the many elements together beautifully. In my little book, the result should be more celebrated among his canon than it is. I know it's my favorite among the many Ford Westerns I've seen.

"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. Enjoy and wallow in its visual and emotional beauty

The Western can be divided into many sub-genres. One of the broadest divisions is that between Town Westerns and Plains Westerns. Most Westerns are a mix of both, but at one end of the spectrum you have pictures like High Noon and Rio Bravo that take place almost entirely in a settlement, seldom venturing out into the real outdoors. 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. Wagon Master has a typical Frank Nugent script, with some interplay between seasoned oldsters and green youngsters, but still it presents Ford with some fresh challenges. In this picture, the dangers do not come from the harshness of the landscape, they come from within the group in the form of the Cleggses. What's more, the absence of real interior scenes means the outdoors could lose its impact over time.

However, Ford was a real maestro when it came to manipulating space. He shoots scenes of the camp or the wagons so the frame is surrounded and we get that same sense of enclosure as we would in a genuine interior. Also, compared to his other Westerns, he does not in fact open out the space too much, having the wagon trail wend its way through canyons and passes rather than cross the stark and empty plains. One of the few moments where he does throw the landscape wide open is when the Indians are spotted and there is the possibility of a threat from outside.

Wagon Master features some surprisingly effective moments of comic relief, and some great contributions from the quirky cast. Harry Carey Jr. was shaping up into a fine actor like his pa, and this is one of his better early roles. Joanne Dru was disappointing in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, but she appears more at ease as a character with a bit of sass, and is actually fairly good here. Jane Darwell, who won an Oscar in the John Ford-directed Grapes of Wrath a decade earlier, appears here with sole function of performing a running gag in which she sounds a feeble old horn. Still, with her great timing and movement she makes the piece work. Francis Ford, in one of the many mute drunkard roles he played in his little brother's pictures, is at his cheeky best.

And now we come to lead man Ben Johnson. Although he was by no means a bad actor, he was never going to become a big star like John Wayne. And yet, with his effortless horsemanship and easygoing drawl, he was one of the most authentically "West" players around. And this brings me onto my final point. This was apparently one of Ford's personal favourites, despite it seeming fairly unassuming. Wagon Master has no grand theme or dramatic intensity, it is simply the genre playing itself out. I think this is what Ford loved about it. It's a picture for the Ben Johnsons and the Harry Carey Jrs, not the John Waynes or the Henry Fondas. Small in scope, but worthy in its class.

Wagon Master is a very unique film amongst John Ford's work. 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.

Wagon Master has all ingredients one might expect to find in a John Ford's film. Wonderful cast delivering his best, thou not featuring any major stars, except the most `fordian' of all actors – Ben Johnson. Very peculiar small characters, who provide an obligatory comic relief, and Wagon Master has quite a few of them such as horn blowing Sister Ledyard (Jane Darwell) in her shot but very inspired gigs. And last but not least legendary Monument Valley with John Ford's fifth passage through it after Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

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. On their way they are joined by a very peculiar Dr. Locksley Hall (Alan Mowbray) with two beautiful women, who are supposedly his wife and daughter and who call themselves actors. They are headed in the same direction simply because they were recently driven out of the nearest town and have no other place to go. Nothing particularly unpleasant happens till they bump into Cleggs, a dangerous family gang consisting of father and his three sons who are on the run from the Marshal of the town where they recently committed murder and bank robbery.

Overall Wagon Master is no more nor less than one more precious pearl in a necklace of John Ford's wonderful Westerns. A must see. 9/10