Il cacciatore del Missouri

Across the Wide Missouri (1951)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Clark Gable plays a beaver hunter who heads to the Rocky Mountains but encounters Indians as he explores the new territory. There's some nice things in this film but in the end it comes as a major disappointed especially about Gable and Wellman did so much better with The Call of the Wild in 1935. When this was shown on TCM, William Wellman, Jr. talked about all the problems with MGM during post production. Apparently this was originally meant to be an epic picture but the studio started cutting it to pieces and they eventually cut so much that they had to hire Howard Keel to do narration to bring any sense to the film. Watching the 78-minute movies it's easy to tell that there's all sorts of stuff missing and there are even some very strange edits, which make it clear that we were originally meant to see more. As for the final version, it's really not too bad but it's not too good either. Gable is pretty good in his role but Ricardo Montalban steals the film. J. Carroll Naish has a nice role as well. The Technicolor really brings out the great locations but in the end one can't get over the edited product. The "shock" at the end of the picture is also ruined due to the narration, which kills the suspense of how the film plays out.

This movie, for me, is just plain fun and it invokes a lot of memories at 68 years old. My grandfather, 1879-1966, used to speak the Chinook Trading Jargon. The Jargon was a trade language made up of English, French and Indian. It was primarily used on the west coast and as far east as Montana as a common language for trading etc. When I was a little boy my granddad and I used to talk back and forth in Chinook. What we hear in the movie is quite accurate, although they speak too fast for me to keep up with. Needless to say, that with the passage of time, the language has all but disappeared from everyday use. There are, however, people dedicated to keeping it alive and they sometimes have a yearly "rendezvous" where it is spoken and lessons are taught.

Thank you very one for your time. Klahowya Sikhs. (Goodbye friends).

Bernard DeVoto won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 1948 for his 1947 book, "Across the Wide Missouri." Some sources say that after MGM bought the film rights, the studio threw away everything except the title. That's hardly the case, because this film does a very good job of showing life in the early days of the American Northwest. DeVoto's book, and this film are mostly about the native Indians and the white trappers known as mountain men. The latter were a breed of early pioneers that flourished in the 19th century from about 1810 to the early 1880s.

The stage was set for all of this in 1803 when the U.S. acquired the Louisiana Territory from France. The 828,000 square miles doubled the size of the young nation. The purchase brought in all the lands west that drained into the Mississippi River. But most of the lands west of the Missouri River had not yet been explored. President Thomas Jefferson got Congress to approve an expedition to explore the Northwest to the Pacific Ocean.

After the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806, written accounts of it aroused great interest in the East. The mountain men became the first Americans of European descent to migrate to the region. They went first as trappers and explorers who made their living in the lucrative fur- trade. The mountain men peaked in numbers around 1840, at the time the largest U.S. migration began over the 2,200-mile Oregon Trail.

The mountain men helped open the emigrant trails. They explored and lived and dealt mostly at peace with the various Indian tribes. This movie shows all of this very well. MGM filmed the movie in Southwest Colorado, from Durango to Silverton. The spectacular scenery adds to the value and enjoyment of the film.

I am a history buff and during the years leading up to and through the 2004-2006 bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I spent most of my summer vacations traveling and visiting sites along the Lewis and Clark route. One of my guides for these trips was "The Journals of Lewis and Clark," written by Bernard DeVoto in 1953. DeVoto and Lewis and Clark give excellent accounts of the Indians of the time. This movie covers two groups that are prominent in the journals – the Blackfeet and the Nez Perce.

I wonder how familiar the playwrights might have been with the journals. Their story of the young Indian maiden in the movie is similar to that of a real person with Lewis and Clark. Here, Kamiah is of the Blackfeet tribe. She was captured and raised by the Nez Perce. In the Lewis and Clark Expedition, a young Indian wife of a French Canadian trapper, Toussaint Charbonneau, became an invaluable guide across the Indian lands of the Northwest. She was Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian from the Snake River country of Idaho. She had been captured by the Hidatsa and taken to their village along the Missouri River in what is now North Dakota. At age 13, she was sold to Charbonneau as a wife.

This movie has a large cast of first-rate actors. Clark Gable is excellent as Flint Mitchell. Adolphe Menjou excels as Pierre. Maria Elena Marques is dazzling as Kamiah. All the actors who played major Indian parts were very good. Ricardo Montalban plays Ironshirt, John Hodiak is Brecan, J. Carrol Naish is Looking Glass, and Jack Holt is Bear Ghost. The rest of the mountain men and the supporting cast of Indians add to the historical feel and enjoyment of the film.

There was an apparent controversy that arose over this film. From the various accounts I've read, it's not even clear what it was all about. The studio head at the time apparently chopped quite a lot out of the film. Enough, that director William Wellman disowned the movie and said he would never watch it. He alluded to the best action parts being taken out. Apparently, James Whitmore, who plays a mountain man, Old Bill, had much more of a part, and most of his film time was cut out. It would be nice to see a director's cut, which probably no longer exists.

But that aside, I think this is still a first-rate film. It has action, scenery and a beautiful story told about a very interesting time and place in America's history. From that standpoint alone, it is much more valuable than the two popular mountain men pictures that were made, "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) and "The Mountain Men" (1980).

"Across the Wide Missouri" is a film that most should enjoy. It's an excellent snapshot of a pioneer period of the American West.

This film does a good job of portraying the story of the mountain men who trapped beaver in the Rocky Mountains and played a significant role in winning the West. Clark Gable is the star of this film. He plays a trapper who falls in love with a Blackfoot maiden (Maria Elena Marquez). He buys her from a Nez Perce chief hoping to use her to get into the good graces of her grandfather, a Blackfoot leader. Ultimately, he falls in love with her.

The romance between Gable and Marquez is the real story of this film. It is much more believable than the relationship between James Stewart and Debra Paget in "Broken Arrow". In the first place, the two of them can't talk to each other. Gable needs an interpreter to talk to his wife. The relationship compares to the forced marriage between Robert Redford and a Flathead girl in "Jeremiah Johnson". Gable's affection for his Blackfoot wife is obvious throughout the film.

The film paints a much kinder picture of Native American life than many Westerns. Like Dewey Martin's character in "The Big Sky" Gable returns in the end to the Blackfeet. He has learned to value Indian life and wants to raise his son with her mother's people.

The film portrays the real life capture of fur trapper John Colter by the Blackfeet. Captured by a young chief named Iron Shirt Gable must run for his life. The film should have taken more time with this exciting scene. It is far too short and not nearly as exciting as it should have been. I enjoyed Henry Fonda's run for his life in "Drums Along the Mohawk", but it was very poorly done here. Colter's successful escape from his Blackfeet captors deserves a better rendering.

This film is worth watching for the beautiful high mountain scenery and the romance between Gable and Marques. The soundtrack is not particularly original, giving us constant variation on the old standard "Shenandoah", but it is pleasant listening. Enjoy it.

When one watches western films of the latter half of the 19th century, the settlement of the west was on a course that was nothing but bad for the American Indian. As good as some westerns are, always lingering in the back of any viewer's mind is the thought that no matter what the predicament of a given hero/heroine in any film is the fact that the might and power of the United States Cavalry will ultimately tip the balance towards the white man.

But the fur trappers of the early half of that century faced a far different situation. They were few and the Indians at that point outnumbered them. These people as typified by Clark Gable and the rest of the cast in Across the Wide Missouri were the really brave ones in our history. They wanted to trap their beaver and sell their pelts and the last thing they wanted was wholesale immigration of settlers. It took a lot of nerve to live in that lonely existence, days and weeks at a time where you couldn't count on a troop of soldiers to bail you out of trouble.

I'm a big old sucker for films about the earlier west and two good ones came out at this time, this one and the following year from RKO, The Big Sky. I give the nod to this one thought because it was done in color and on location.

Gable gets one of his best post World War II parts as the sturdy Flint Mitchell, mountain man who falls big time for Indian princess Maris Elena Marques. While grandfather Jack Holt approves of a white husband for his granddaughter, the match don't sit well at all with Ricardo Montalban his successor. The climatic duel between Gable and Montalban is staged very well indeed and quite thrilling.

Playing various fur trapper roles are Alan Napier, James Whitmore, John Hodiak and most of all Adolphe Menjou. Though one normally expects the debonair Mr. Menjou in tuxedo, he's really quite good as the French Canadian trapper and sidekick to Gable.

Maria Elena Marquess got her first of two chances in Hollywood and did well as the Indian princess. She was already a name in Mexican cinema and became an even bigger star down there due to this film with Clark Gable.

This film marked the farewell performance of Jack Holt who died soon after it was completed. His career spanned all the way back to the earliest years of Hollywood. He makes a very impressive chief of the Blackfeet.

Gable was a rugged outdoors-man in real life, he liked to fish and hunt and brought his fourth wife, Lady Sylvia Ashley on location. Unfortunately Lady Sylvia was not a big fan of the great outdoors and her experiences roughing it contributed to the Gables getting unhitched.

Director William Wellman kept things going at a good clip and though Across the Wide Missouri is slightly over 75 minutes for an A film, it's still a great item and rates being an A film for its cast and its production values.