Pony Express (film)

Pony Express
Pony Express
	Film poster
Directed by	Jerry Hopper
Written by	Frank Gruber (story); Charles Marquis Warren (writer)
Produced by	Nat Holt
Starring	Charlton Heston; Rhonda Fleming
Cinematography	Ray Rennahan
Edited by	Eda Warren
Music by	Paul Sawtell
Production; company	Nat Holt Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	June 15, 1953;
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1.4 million (US)

Pony Express is a 1953 American western film directed by Jerry Hopper and starring Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill, Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok, Jan Sterling as a Calamity Jane-type character, and Rhonda Fleming that was filmed in Kanab, Utah.^[2] The story is largely based on the 1925 silent film The Pony Express with the threat of a Californian secession from Frontier Pony Express (1939). The film tells a completely imaginary account of the formation of the Pony Express rapid transcontinental mail delivery in the United States in 1860–1861. The picture gives no credit to the real founders of the Pony Express. Buffalo Bill Cody did ride for them —he signed up when he was 15 years old.

Plot

In 1860, Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok join forces to establish a mail route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. On the way, they battle the weather, hostile Indians and California secessionists intent on shutting the operation down to encourage California to secede from the Union.

Charlton Heston did a film tie-in advertisement for Camel cigarettes.^[3]

Parts of the film were shot in Kanab Creek, Kanab movie fort, the Gap, and Johnson Canyon in Utah.^[4]

^ 'The Top Box Office Hits of 1953', Variety, January 13, 1954
^ "Western movies filmed in Kanab". Deseret News. 2001-10-25. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
^ Popular Science - Google Books. June 1953. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
^ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.

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