The Covered Wagon
The Covered Wagon | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical poster[1] | |
Directed by | James Cruze |
Written by | Jack Cunningham (adaptation) |
Produced by | Jesse L. Lasky |
Starring | J. Warren Kerrigan Lois Wilson |
Cinematography | Karl Brown |
Edited by | Dorothy Arzner |
Music by | Josiah Zuro Hugo Riesenfeld |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Budget | $782,000 |
Box office | $3.5 million[2][3] |
The Covered Wagon is a 1923 American silent Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a novel by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers traveling through the old West from Kansas to Oregon. J. Warren Kerrigan starred as Will Banion and Lois Wilson as Molly Wingate. On their quest they experience desert heat, mountain snow, hunger, and Indian attack.[4]
Cast
- J. Warren Kerrigan as Will Banion (hero)
- Lois Wilson as Molly Wingate (heroine)
- Alan Hale as Sam Woodhull (villain)
- Ernest Torrence as William Jackson
- Tully Marshall as Jim Bridger
- Ethel Wales as Mrs. Wingate
- Charles Ogle as Jesse Wingate
- Guy Oliver as Kit Carson
- Johnny Fox as Jed Wingate
Cast notes
Production
The film was a major production for its time, with an estimate budget of $782,000.[6]
In his 1983 book Classics of the Silent Cinema, radio and TV host Joe Franklin claimed this film was "the first American epic not directed by Griffith".[5]
In the 1980 documentary Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Cinema, Jesse L. Laskey Jr. maintained that the goal of director James Cruze was " ... to elevate the Western, which had always been sort of a potboiler kind of film, to the status of an epic".[7]
The film required a large cast and film crew and many extras,[8] and was filmed in various locations, including Palm Springs, California[9]: 168–71 and several places in Nevada and Utah.[10] The dramatic buffalo hunt and buffalo stampede scenes were filmed on Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Utah. During filming for the movie, seven bison from the Antelope Island Bison Herd were shot and killed.
The covered wagons gathered by Paramount from all over the Southwest were not replicas, but the real wagons that had brought the pioneers west. They were cherished heirlooms of the families who owned them. The producers offered the owners $2 a day and feed for their stock if they would bring the wagons for the movie. Most of the extras seen on film are the families who owned the covered wagons and were perfectly at home driving them and living out of them during the production.[11]
Reception
The film premiered in New York City on 16 March 1923 and ran 98 minutes. A musical soundtrack was recorded in the short-lived DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, but sources vary on whether this record soundtrack was of the entire score or about two reels worth of the film. The Phonofilm version of the film was only shown this way at the premiere at the Rivoli Theater in New York City.[12] Paramount reportedly also released Bella Donna on 1 April 1923 with a Phonofilm soundtrack, also only at the premiere at the Rivoli.
The film was the most popular movie of 1923 in the US and Canada.[13]
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
- 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated[14]
See also
- The House That Shadows Built (1931) promotional film released by Paramount with excerpt of The Covered Wagon
References
- ^ Alternative poster
- ^ Quigley Publishing Company "The All Time Best Sellers", International Motion Picture Almanac 1937-38 (1938) p 942 accessed 19 April 2014
- ^ "WHICH CINEMA FILMS HAVE EARNED THE MOST MONEY SINCE 1914?". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 4 March 1944. p. 3 Supplement: The Argus Weekend magazine. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
- ^ "The Covered Wagon".
- ^ a b Franklin, Joe. Classics of the Silent Screen. Bramhall House.
- ^ "The Covered Wagon". September 8, 1924. Retrieved October 23, 2016 – via IMDb.
- ^ Brownlow, Kevin. Episode "Out West", Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Cinema (Thames Television), 1980.
- ^ "www.cinemaweb.com". Retrieved October 23, 2016.
- ^ Niemann, Greg (2006). Palm Springs Legends: creation of a desert oasis. San Diego, CA: Sunbelt Publications. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-932653-74-1. OCLC 61211290. (here for Table of Contents)
- ^ "The Covered Wagon". September 8, 1924. Retrieved October 23, 2016 – via IMDb.
- ^ Episode "Out West", Hollywood, 1980.
- ^ "Silent Era : Progressive Silent Film List". Retrieved October 23, 2016.
- ^ Variety list of box office champions for 1923
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 20 August 2016.
External links
- 1923 films
- 1920s adventure films
- 1920s drama films
- 1920s romance films
- 1920s Western (genre) films
- American films
- American adventure drama films
- American black-and-white films
- American epic films
- American romance films
- American silent feature films
- American Western (genre) films
- Famous Players-Lasky films
- Films based on American novels
- Films directed by James Cruze
- Films shot in California
- Films shot in Nevada
- Films shot in Oregon
- Films shot in Utah
- Paramount Pictures films
- Romantic Western (genre) films