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Westward the Women

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Westward the Women
Theatrical film poster
Directed byWilliam A. Wellman
Screenplay byCharles Schnee
Story byFrank Capra
Produced byDore Schary
StarringRobert Taylor
Denise Darcel
John McIntire
CinematographyWilliam C. Mellor
Edited byJames E. Newcom
Music byJeff Alexander
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • December 31, 1951 (1951-12-31)
Running time
118 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2,203,000[1]
Box office$3,996,000[1]

Westward the Women is a 1951 American western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel and John McIntire.

Plot

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In 1851, Roy Whitman wants to keep the lonely men who live in Whitman's Valley in California from leaving, so he decides to bring a large group of respectable women from the East to marry them. He hires experienced though skeptical wagon master Buck Wyatt to lead a wagon train along the California Trail. In Chicago, Whitman recruits 138 "good women", who are not daunted when Buck tells them that one-third of them will not survive the journey.

The women range from Patience, an older widow from New Bedford, to Rose Meyers, a pregnant, unmarried woman seeking a better future. The women choose prospective mates from daguerreotype pictures tacked to a display board. Two showgirls, Fifi Danon and Laurie Smith, hastily change their flashy clothing when others like them are rejected before presenting themselves to Roy and Buck. Whitman is not fooled, but is convinced they wish to reform. He accepts them, bringing the total count to 140 women.

Whitman and Wyatt take the women to St. Joseph, Missouri, where Conestoga wagons, horses, and mules await, along with 15 trail hands hired by Buck. Ito, a determined if diminutive Japanese man, persuades Buck to take him on as the cook. Before setting out, Buck warns the men and the women to stay away from each other, as he has seen wagon trains torn apart by romantic shenanigans. Four experienced women teach the others how to harness draft animals and drive the wagons. After a week's training, the train heads west.

During the journey, Buck executes a man who raped Laurie. As a result, all but two trail hands desert during the night, with eight women going with them. This leaves only Buck, Roy, Ito, and Sid Cutler, who has fallen in love with Rose. Roy decides they must turn back, but as they are halfway to their destination, Buck believes the women can "do a man's job" and finish the difficult journey. He trains them how to shoot to defend themselves. Young Tony Moroni, the only boy on the train, is accidentally killed during firearms practice. When his distraught widowed mother (who speaks only Italian) refuses to leave her son's grave, Buck knocks her out, hogties her (lest she commit suicide), and puts her in Patience and Rose's wagon.

The women persevere through hardships and dangers, including a stampede and a dangerous descent down a steep, rocky trail that kills one woman. An Indian attack claims the lives of Roy, Sid, and six women. When a rainstorm undercuts the river bank, Fifi and Laurie's wagon plunges into the water, drowning Laurie. Gradually, Fifi begins to thaw Buck's attitude towards women in general and her in particular. She and Buck fall in love.

On the edge of a forbidding desert, Buck orders the wagons to be lightened, leaving furniture and fancy clothing behind. As the women proceed on foot across the sand, Rose collapses and goes into labor; she is carried to a wagon, where she gives birth to a baby boy after the wagon loses one of its wheels.

After crossing the desert, they reach a small lake on the border of Whitman's Valley. The women refuse to go any further until Buck brings them decent apparel so they will look presentable to their future husbands. Buck rides on ahead and tells the men to find any material they can from which the women can make new clothes. Wearing proper dresses, the ladies drive into town. Patience warns that the women will be doing the choosing as they pair off with the men whose pictures they picked. Mrs. Moroni meets an Italian citrus farmer, and one man willingly accepts Rose and her baby. As the men and women dance, some couples get into line to be married by a preacher. Ito coaxes Fifi into swallowing her pride and going to Buck, who pretends he is preparing to ride out. They join the line waiting for the minister.

Cast

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Production

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Frank Capra, who receives story credit, originally intended to do this film himself; he'd always wanted to make a western, hopefully with Gary Cooper, but Paramount wasn't interested. He mentioned the idea to Wellman, who asked if he could take a stab at it. Capra gave him his blessing, and Wellman pitched it to Dore Schary at MGM, who gave him the go-ahead and liked the concept so much that he produced it himself.

A documentary included in the film's DVD states that it was filmed at various locations in Kane County, Utah.[2] Film locations also include Johnson Canyon, the Gap, Paria, and Surprise Valley in Utah.[3] The documentary also mentions that the actresses all had to learn how to drive a four horse team pulling a wagon.

Reception

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According to MGM records the film earned $2,640,000 in the US and Canada and $1,356,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $266,000.[1]

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 67% from 33 reviews.[4]

Radio adaptation

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Westward the Women was presented on Lux Radio Theatre December 29, 1952. Taylor and Darcel re-created their roles from the film in the one-hour adaptation.[5]

Film inspires caravans of women in Spain

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In 1985, the Spanish village of Plan, Aragon, made the news in Spain when local bachelors organized a "caravan of women" following an airing on television of Westward the Women. At the time the plan was conceived, there were over 40 single men and just one single woman in the village, since most of the local women had emigrated. An advertisement in the press calling for "Women between 20 and 40 with marriage intentions for Pyrenees village" resulted in 33 marriages, revitalizing the village.[6]

Since then, other Spanish villages have organized similar "caravans".[6]

The phenomenon inspired the 1999 Spanish film Flowers from Another World.

References

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  1. ^ a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study, Los Angeles
  2. ^ Documentary included with the DVD Westward the Women. ASIN B007RKFXQW.
  3. ^ D'Arc, James V. (2010). When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah (1st ed.). Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. ISBN 9781423605874.
  4. ^ "Westward the Women | Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes.
  5. ^ Kirby, Walter (December 28, 1952). "Better Radio Programs for the Week". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 36. Retrieved June 5, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ^ a b "Los hijos de la caravana, sin plan". El Mundo (in Spanish). January 16, 2005.
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