Perhaps the strong women characters got this William Wellman movie chosen for Blu-ray, but it indeed ranks up there with the best of wagon train epics. Robert Taylor plays opposite a large cast of actresses that we see doing the hard work on rugged distant locations. Realism isn’t compromised — the unusually violent story is made positive and upbeat through the committed ensemble performances — at times it’s a genuine lump-in-your-throat picture. It’s Denise Darcel’s stab at Hollywood stardom and a top title for the terrific Hope Emerson. We want to know more about the fine supporting players: Julie Bishop, Lenore Lonergan, Marily Erksine. Producer Dore Schary overturns sexist expectations, even when dealing with Hollywood stereotypes. It’s highly recommended.

Westward the Women
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1951 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Available at MovieZyng / Street Date September 26, 2023 / 21.99
Starring: Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel, Hope Emerson, John McIntire, Julie Bishop, Lenore Lonergan, Henry Nakamura, Marilyn Erskine, Beverly Dennis, Renata Vanni, Pat Conway, George Chandler, Mikel Conrad, Frankie Darro, Mary Alan Hokanson, Mary Murphy, Millicent Patrick, Guido Martufi, Chubby Johnson.
Cinematography: William Mellor
Art Directors: Cedric Gibbons, Daniel B. Cathcart
Costumes: Walter Plunkett
Film Editor: James E. Newcom
Original Music: Jeff Alexander
Screenplay by Charles Schnee story by Frank Capra
Produced by Dore Schary
Directed by William A. Wellman

As the wagon train adventure begins in 1951’s Westward the Women, the female pioneers yell and whoop in unison. It’s similar to the classic scene in Howard Hawks’ Red River yet is in no way a copy: just as with everything else in his movie, director William Wellman chooses gritty naturalism over iconic glory. Although we agree that the wagon train classics of the sound era are Red River and John Ford’s Wagon Master, Wellman’s Westward the Women is at the moment our personal favorite. Every scene seems entirely fresh, as if producer Dore Schary leaned on his collaborators to find new approaches to the material.

There’s a lot of death in the movie, mostly suffered by women. We care about these individuals, most of whom are killed without sentimental trappings. The approach is severe, but not flippant: when someone dies, nobody recites a Howard Hawks’ “Charlie who?”  speech. Another example of the film’s fresh approach is its big Indian attack. It mostly happens off-screen, and it’s not missed one bit — the body count tells us how rough it was.

As they had done for their fine, Oscar-winning collaboration Battleground, Wellman and Schary continually surprise us, and the result is a strongly affecting experience.

No ‘babes out West’ gimmicks here.

One would think that the wagon train saga had been tapped out, but Westward the Women gives us an ordeal with which we can identify, plus realism that bests the classics in the subgenre. This is how it might have been. An unexpected plus is the film’s understated feminist angle. With very little in the way of fussing and no cheap jokes about female weakness, the caravan’s 138 women prove fully capable of taking care of themselves an adverse situation, through determination and teamwork.

We’re told that the original story was penned by the famed director Frank Capra. Even if his take was much different, his basic concept is sound. This movie inspired us to retrieve one of the oldest photos from our family album, of an ancestor who came to California in the 1850s. Her name was Jerusha, and she must have been a dynamo. →

Movie market research in the 1950s concluded that housewives chose what the family saw on movie night, so the studios strained to inject ‘love interest’ into westerns and war movies. Westward the Women solves that problem with a ‘mail order bride’ storyline. Rancher-farmer Roy Whitman (John McIntire) has established a successful ranch in a fertile California valley, but to make it permanent he needs ‘good’ women, so his all-male ranchhands will settle permanently. Women are a rare item out West. Whitman hires wagon master Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor) to bring 150 Chicago ladies to husbands waiting in California.

He gets plenty of takers, women wanting freedom or a new start. Some are widows, two disguise their background as showgirls, and one is secretly pregnant and in search of a better life for her baby. Buck’s 15 hired outriders soon tangle with his stiff non-fraternization rule. After he shoots one who has raped Laurie (Julie Bishop), the cowboys desert, taking some of the women with them. The hardships of the trail take their toll, and some of Buck’s charges are killed, by accidents and Indian attacks. Buck twice decides to turn back, but his pioneers refuse to quit, led by their natural spokeswoman Patience Hawley (Hope Emerson).

An ordeal by fire — but also a sexual liberation.

Buck Wyatt addresses the prospective pioneer brides in a setup resembling a standard male-centric ‘briefing the group for the mission’ scene. He stresses the mortal risks the women will face, and is impressed to find a few hardy types that already have experience with animals, wagons and guns. On this all-female wagon train the male outriders are supposed to do the heavy work, but some aren’t frontier Galahads. A few are smart-talking jokers, less-than-responsible guys out for money and maybe a roll in the hay. There’s no Hawksian ‘Dunson don’t abide quitters’ talk. When the hundred-plus women find themselves all but marooned, they’re forced beyond the feminine guidelines of their time.

MGM head Dore Schary strived to bring socially conscious values to postwar Hollywood. He was a major impetus behind the ‘issue’ movies The Boy with Green Hair and The Next Voice You Hear…. Unable to get approval for a movie about the Japanese internment camps, Schary committed MGM to Go for Broke!, which honored the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry Battalion, a highly-decorated all-Nisei outfit. Schary gave Westward the Women’s Buck Wyatt a sidekick named Ito (Henry Nakamura), with major dramatic responsibilities. One of Schary’s final personal MGM productions was Bad Day at Black Rock, a suspenseful message picture about an anti-Japanese hate crime.

Director William Wellman was a good choice to help Dore Schary bring progressive film art to MGM. With Robert Taylor the only high-paid star, the budget went toward extensive location filming. Although night scenes were filmed back in the studio, the shooting ranged across the deserts of three Western states. The actresses worked long hours, exposed to the elements in every kind of terrain. Much of the show has no musical soundtrack, which makes the trek seem all the more real. Few close-ups use rear projection — the plain-faced cast is really squinting under the sun.

The characterizations are strong. Roy Whitman is a noble gentleman with an idealized vision. Buck Wyatt is the kind of guy who accepts responsibility and demands a lot of others. His occasional ill temper would seem a defense against emotional involvement with women, but his female charges accept his challenges at face value. For them the trek is a life-changing decision from which there’s no going back.

Roys interviews weed out a few flaky applicants but the ‘experienced’ showgirl Fifi Danon (Denise Darcel) sneaks into the train by inventing a chaste background.  ↑  She immediately sets her cap for the confirmed bachelor Buck Wyatt. It’s to the film’s credit that their flirtation doesn’t unbalance the drama. There are no oo-la-la bathing scenes or other generic nonsense to overcome; in fact, Fifi’s best friend dies in a rainstorm while their protector Buck is off getting himself drunk. Three years later Denise Darcel would play Robert Aldrich’s French femme fatale in his radical western adventure Vera Cruz, her best-remembered movie.

Screenwriter Charles Schnee also wrote Red River. His dialogue is very good, especially the comic touches. Buck tasks Ito with finding a grave marker for someone named ‘Hackenbush,’ an inspired running gag with an excellent payoff. We wonder if this movie provided the inspiration for the ‘Arch Stanton’ subplot in Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

The show is surprisingly tough-minded. Wyatt’s prediction that 1 in 3 may perish turns out to be correct. Women are shot, drowned, crushed and roughed up pretty badly; a woman goes crazy after a terrible accident claims a loved one. Wyatt says that ‘stupid accidents’ will occur. Buck happens to be away from his post when one disaster strikes, decimating the wagon train. But the trek goes on.

The feminine portrayals in Westward the Women go against the Hollywood norm, especially for MGM. Shy and retreating?  Women have always had to deal with the worst of life, often without help. It’s men that prefer to think of them as helpless, when they readily adapt to adverse situations. There are no perfumed schoolmarms, shrinking violets or crybabies in what becomes a female community with a purpose. The one schoolteacher keeps a log but walks and works with the rest. Hope Emerson’s Patience Hawley has a slightly sarcastic attitude, but also a strong sense of fair play and the courage to match her seafaring vocabulary. Two of the women are crack shots, and several more know how to work pack animals and drive wagons; they teach the rest. Out in the wilderness, the women take charge in emergencies and stick together.

We wonder if Dore Schary was enthused about the Italian neo-realist movies then being lauded by the New York film critics. Westward the Women has a bathing scene where the women hike up their skirts exactly like the soggy workers in De Santis’s Bitter Rice.  ↙  The pioneer caravan features an Italian immigrant. Her child and dog behave like adorable refugees from De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.

There were indeed mail-order brides in the West. In some places the scarcity of women was so bad that groups of females did indeed sign up and agree to marry men they’d never met. We see the women claim their prospective spouses by picking photos from a posting board. We and they must take on faith Roy Whitman’s assurance that they’re all good men.

↗  Actress Hope Emerson really shines in this picture. At 6′ 2″ in height, she often played menacing figures. Her masseuse in Cry of the City easily intimidates the gangster villain. Katherine Hepburn’s attorney in Adam’s Rib uses Emerson’s acrobat in court to prove that women can be powerful. She’s a threatening cell warden in the prison horror tale Caged, for which she won an Oscar nomination. Emerson’s role in Westward is in every way heroic. Patience Hawley’s husband and two sons were lost at sea. She models the grit and determination the other women will have to learn.

Emerson’s size can’t be ignored — especially when she chooses the puny ‘Mackerel Face’ from the photo wall of potential husbands. He’s played unbilled by the familiar George Chandler (Roxie Hart). When Patience pulls off a particularly brave feat, Buck Wyatt says “I’d kiss you if you weren’t so big!”  His attitude and Emerson’s reaction work against the expected easy laugh.

Also given special consideration is Henry Nakamura’s Ito, a sidekick character who earns his keep early on.  ↑  Ito supports Buck’s lethal response to the rapist, but speaks his mind when he disagrees with his boss’s judgment. He also mocks Buck with a Frank McHugh-like retort: “Haw – hah! Producer Dore Schary clearly wanted to heal America’s relationship with all things Japanese. He had given Henry Nakamura the final line of dialogue in Go for Broke!  Nakamura also returned for William Wellman in Blood Alley and Lafayette Escadrille.

A fair complaint with Westward the Women is that it identifies only a few of its talented actresses. They’re not easy to spot, for they usually wear glamour makeup in other movies. The credited Julie Bishop began in silent films as Jacqueline Wells, and kept that name until 1941. Her most famous film is probably the classic The Black Cat. The established stage actress Lenore Lonergan had only a brief film career. A few years back we caught up with her good role in the seldom-screened The Whistle at Eaton Falls. Marilyn Erskine appears to have been a utility actress at MGM, until the studio cleared out its contract player roster in 1953. She played again with Robert Taylor in Above and Beyond.

Although many of the uncredited women pioneers get good coverage in medium shots, some are even harder to identify. Mary Alan Hokanson is easy, because we know her so well from Them! and dozens of other ’50s pictures, like Guys and Dolls. This time through I still didn’t make a positive ID on the beautiful Mary Murphy from The Wild One and The Desperate Hours. And we’re always on the lookout for film appearances by Millicent Patrick, an actress now touted as the artist-designer of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Do any sharper-eyed correspondents want to give us minute-and-second descriptions of when in Westward these ladies appear?

The finale of Westward the Women carries a potent emotional kick, one stronger than most westerns aiming for a reverent take on new lives established in a new land. For the survivors, the last stop is a getting-to-know-you party for new beginnings, with a preacher waiting to marry a line of applicants who have literally just met. Wellman gets some humor out of the situation, but the main feeling is that the clumsy-but-benign mass wedding is an improvised ritual justified by extreme circumstances. Did these marriages work?

Westward undercuts the sugar ‘n’ spice finale of Oklahoma!, whose well-scrubbed newlyweds claim title to a glorious all-white future as farmers. Fifty years later, will Curley and Laurey fall onto hard times when their ‘brand new state’ becomes a dustbowl?

As impossible as it might seem, some communities were formed like this overnight. The chaste ladies meet the respectful Whitman Valley ranchers, and everybody feels uplifted by the music. A terribly unhappy Italian widow (Renata Vanni) has been miserable for most of the trip, but gets an almost miraculous surprise when she meets the stranger whom she will marry. Others pair off as if reenacting a chapter in the Bible. California is rich and full of promise — for the future they felt they were denied back East. It’s tough-minded but not cynical, a western with a profoundly hopeful finish.

The Warner Archive Collection 2012 DVD of Westward the Women looked fine but the added kick of HD Blu-ray really makes a difference. The images display handsome ‘Big Sky’ pictorial values. Cinematographer William Mellor makes his many actresses attractive without the trappings of Hollywood glamour.

The new Blu-ray adds to the good extras already seen on the DVD. The original full commentary by Scott Eyman covers the story of producer Dore Schary in great detail; we fantasy film fans are grateful that Schary green-lit the impressive Forbidden Planet before leaving MGM. The only improvement to the discussion would have been more information about the film’s many unfamiliar actresses, identifying them as we go along.

MGM’s vintage on-location featurette about the filming (Challenge the Wilderness) is actually quite good, much more than marketing fluff. It was directed by Jack Atlas, a pioneer trailer maker who I met in 1992. He rented out his building on Seward to the last trailer boutique I worked for.

The WAC also adds a radio adaptation with Robert Taylor, and two remastered Tom and Jerry cartoons, one with a western theme. I’ve seen Westward the Women on Blu-ray twice now, and am ready to see it again.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Westward the Women
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Scott Eyman
Vintage featurette Challenge of the Wilderness
Lux Radio Theater Broadcast 12/29/52 with Robert Taylor
Hanna-Barbera ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons Texas Tom, The Duck Doctor
Theatrical Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: September 23, 2023
(6998west)

Final product for this review was provided free by The Warner Archive Collection.

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Text © Copyright 2023 Glenn Erickson

Here’s Larry Karaszewski on Westward the Women: