Wagon Master
by John Ford
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Actor: Ben Johnson, Charles Kemper, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward BondDirector: John Ford
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Bert Glennon
Producer: John Ford
Writer: John Ford
Producer: Lowell J. Farrell
Producer: Merian C. Cooper
Writer: Frank S. Nugent
Writer: Patrick Ford
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-09-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- The rivers are wide and rapid. The desert is vast and unforgiving. And when the trail turns craggy, men use pickaxes to dig grooves for the wagon wheels. Mother Nature can be overcome, but human nature remains deadly and unpredictable: Outlaws are using the Mormon wagon train as a hideout from a pursuing posse. John Ford s Wagon Master is one of the legendary filmmaker s personal favorites, a visu
DVD Reviews of Wagon Master
DVD Review: Flawed Ford Film
Summary: 2 Stars
Wagon Master is a 1950 John Ford western starring Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, Joanne Dru and Harry Carey Jr. with Ford's brother Francis, Jane Darwell, and Hank Worden.
Ben Johnson (1918-96) was the consummate cowboy. He appeared in nearly 100 films, mostly westerns. In addition to his 9 films with John Ford, Johnson appeared in such classics as "Shane" (1953), "Hang `em High" (1968), "Dillinger" (1973), and "Bite the Bullet" (1975). He was a favorite of Sam Peckinpah who used him in "Major Dundee" (1965), "The Wild Bunch" (1969), "Junior Bonner" (1972), and "The Getaway" (1972). He won the Oscar and a Golden Globe in 1972 for "The Last Picture Show" and a Western Heritage award for "Bite the Bullet" (1975). He appears as a horse trader who joins a wagon train. BTW - Johnson does all his own stunts in the film.
Harry Carey Jr. (1921 - ) was the son of Harry Carey, a great silent film western star and one of Ford's longtime friends with whom he did 27 films. The son did 9 films with Ford, including the cavalry trilogy, "The Searchers" (1956) and "Two Rode Together" (1961). Though he specialized in westerns, he also appeared in "Mr. Roberts" (1955) and "The Long Grey Line" (1955). Carey plays Johnson's sidekick.
Ward Bond (1903-1960) was a USC football player with friend John Wayne, and together they appeared in nearly a dozen films including "They Were Expendable" (1945), "Fort Apache" (1948), "The Searchers" (1956), "Wings of Eagles" (1957), and "Rio Bravo" (1959). Without Wayne, Bond was also a staple in Ford's stock company and appeared in "Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)", "My Darling Clementine" (1946), and "The Grapes of Wrath (1940) among the 25 films they made together. He's probably best remembered for his role as Major Seth Adams on the TV series "Wagon Train" (1957 - 1961), based on this film. Bond was in more Top 100 AFI films (7) than any other actor, and appeared in 11 films that were nominated as Best Picture. He appears as the Elder of the Mormons who headed West.
Joanne Dru (1922-96) was a big hit in two westerns - "Red River" (1947) and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949) - so she got this role and following another great performance, she was typecast, although she did manage several non-westerns the most notably of which was "The Pride of St. Louis" (1952). She transitioned to TV in the mid 50s where she had a more varied career, but still did the occasional western, including "Wagon Train". She plays a woman of questionable values who is romanced by Johnson.
Alan Mowbray (1896-1969) reprises his role as the snake oil salesman from "My Darling Clementine" (1946). Mowbray appeared in over 100 films, often as a pompous blowhard with names like Throckmorton ("Mary of Scotland"), Pennypepper E. Pennypepper ("There Goes My Heart"), and Granville Thorndike ("My Darling Clementine"). He transitioned to TV in the 50s.
Jane Darwell (1879-1967) made 7 films with John Ford, and she gave one of the finest screen performances in history, winning the Oscar for "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940). She was much in demand and made more than 200 films between 1913 and 1964. She appears as part of the wagon train.
Russell Simpson (1880-1959) put his hawked nose and beady eyes in over 200 films between 1914 and 1959. He was a favorite of Ford who used him in films like "The Horse Soldiers" (1959), "Tobacco Road" (1941), "They Were Expendable" (1945), and "My Darling Clementine" (1946). I liked him best as The Preacher from "The Last Command" (1955). Simpson plays a Mormon elder.
Charles Kemper (1900-1950) plays Uncle Shiloh, leader of a ruthless gang of bank robbers and murderers. Although a veteran of more than 30 films, most of them westerns, Kemper didn't have the gravitas to be a serious villain. Ford films offered strong villains - Lee Marvin in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962), Walter Brennan in "My Darling Clementine" (1946), Henry Brandon (War Chief Scar) in "The Searchers" (1956) - and Kemper just doesn't stack up.
Hank Worden (1901-1992) is probably best remembered for playing ol' Mose in "The Searchers" (1956). Worden made over 100 films, 12 with Ford and 17 with John Wayne, starting with "Stagecoach" in 1939. Like Ben Johnson, Worden was a cowboy turned actor. Uncharacteristically he plays a member of the outlaw gang.
Look for James Arness (1923 - ) as another gang member. Arness was Marshall Dillon on TV's "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 1975 and subsequently has returned every so often for various Gunsmoke TV movies. Before he put on the star for Dodge City, Arness was a film actor who got his big break from John Wayne who cast him in four films in the early 50s. In fact, the original role as Marshall Dillon was offered to Wayne who turned it down and suggested Arness. BTW - if you think Arness is lumbering a bit too much, perhaps he is rehearsing for his role the next year as "The Thing" (1951).
Francis Ford (1881-1953) was John's older brother. He was a writer and a director and also an actor, appearing in more than 400 films including several films directed by his younger brother. It was Francis (when he worked at Universal) who introduced John to directing and also introduced him to Harry Carey. It's said that John included Frances in his films so that he could boss him around. Usually Frances had minor roles and rarely spoke, as he does in this film, though he does bang the drum a lot.
John Ford (1894-1073) directs. This was Ford's 115th film (including 61 silent films). He had already won 3 Oscars - "How Green was My Valley" (1941), "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), and "The Informer"(1935) - and made such memorable films as "Stagecoach" in 1939 (Oscar nominated but not a winner) and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" in 1949. Ford worked on nearly 150 films and he listed this film as among his top 3. Not coincidently, it is one of the few he helped write and produced through his own company, Argosy.
Bert Glennon (1893-1967) handles the camera. He lensed more than 100 films and was three times nominated for an Oscar; he had the distinction of being nominated for an Oscar for color ("Drums Along the Mohawk") and black and white ("Stagecoach") in the same year. Ford used him in many of his films ("Young Mr. Lincoln", "Rio Grande", Sergeant Rutledge"), although in this film the camera is even more static than usual, at times creating the illusion that we are watching a documentary rather than a film.
The film is shot in Monument Valley Utah which was one of Ford's favorite locations. Other films shot there include "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964), "How the West was Won" (1962), "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960), "The Searchers" (1956), "Rio Grande" (1950), "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), "Fort Apache" (1948), "My Darling Clementine" (1946), and "Stagecoach" (1939).
1950 was a good year for films with Oscars for "The African Queen", "A Place in the Sun", "Streetcar named Desire", and "An American in Paris". The top grosser included "Cinderella", "King Solomon's Mines", "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Sunset Boulevard". Westerns were popular with films like "Ambush", "Broken Arrow", "The Gunfighter" and "Winchester 73".
"Wagon Master" has several problems as a film. It did relatively poorly at the box office, and received no awards. While the film features Ward Bond, Jane Darwell, Francis Ford, Hank Worden, Alan Mowbray, and Russell Simpson, missing are such staples as Mildred Natwick, Barry Fitzgerald, Ken Curtis, Willis Bouchey , Anna Lee, Olive Carry, John Qualen, Victor McLaglen, Maureen O'Hara, Andy Devine, and, of course, The Duke. The usual Ford western has nearly a dozen or more of these actors, but not here.
In addition, the best Ford films have a hero who abandons long held principles to attain a higher purpose - Boxer Sean Thornton gives up his vow not to fight in order to win his love Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man", Uncle Ethan gives up his plan to kill Natalie Wood in "The Searchers", Captain Brittles foregoes "one last mission" and accept his age in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon". In this film the principal actors abandon no ideals, and without the sacrifice, there is no intensity to the film.
We're also missing the dynamic rivalry between the male leads - John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter in "The Searchers" battle over what to do with Natalie Wood, John Wayne and Henry Fonda in "Fort Apache" argue over the attitude toward the Indians, John Wayne and William Holden bicker about the role of the physician in war in "The Horse Soldiers", John Wayne and Victor McLaglen have a terrific fist fight over Maureen O'Hara in "The Quiet Man." Instead, there is more of a buddy relationship between Johnson, Carey, and Bond and no real rivalries. This is not unlike the relationship between James Stewart and Richard Widmark in "Two Rode Together", another Ford film that fails to match his usual high standards.
On top of this, Wagon Master has the additional problem of lacking a strong male lead. Which is not meant to demean the acting talents of Bond, Johnson, and Carey, but the usual Ford film had a major male star, and more often, two major stars.
Finally, there is some questionable editing with this film, particularly at the end. Ford was normally a master with the shot and the editing, so the glaring lapses in continuity and quick jumps are very noticeable in a Ford film.
Ford fans will want to see this film just because it is so different from his other (and better) films, but for other people there really isn't very much to recommend it.
Description of Wagon Master
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