Running parallel with our series about Akira Kurosawa ("Walking Kurosawa's Road"), we're running a series of pieces about the closest thing America has to Kurosawa in artistry—director John Ford. Ford rarely made films set in the present day, but (usually) made them about the past...and about America's past, specifically (when he wasn't fulfilling a passion for his Irish roots).
In "The History of John Ford" we'll be gazing fondly at the work of this American Master, who started in the Silent Era, learning his craft, refining his director's eye, and continuing to work deep into the 1960's (and his 70's) to produce the greatest body of work of any American "picture-maker," America's storied film-maker, the irascible, painterly, domineering, sentimental puzzle that was John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.
Wagon Master (John Ford, 1950) The western expansion of the American frontier is a standard theme of...the Western. John Ford had featured prospective settlers (and settling prospectors) in many of his films, but made the phenomenon the center of his film Wagonmaster, a modest black and white western, made in between When Willie Comes Marching Home and Rio Grande. Wagonmaster could well be the pilot episode of the television series "Wagon Train" (1957-1965)—which also starred Ward Bond in the first four seasons. There are no A-list stars—just the "Ford Stock Company" stepping front and center in the film, rather than filling the corners and back-stories.Ford begins the movie bluntly with an almost silent sequence (Ford learned his craft making silent pictures)—the Clegg's (Charles Kemper, James Arness, Hank Worden, Fred Libby, and Mickey Simpson) are robbing the Crystal City Bank, resulting in Pa Clegg being shot in the wing, and, incensed by the inconvenience and the impertinence, shooting the chief clerk in the back without regard to the escalation. The bank's sole source of internal light, a hanging hurricane lamp, swings with the force and the temerity of it. There have been no titles, no studio accreditation, no introduction. The movie begins with a terrible act with no word of warning.
It is only then that the titles appear proudly, diametrically, over footage of a dogged wagon train (complete with dog) accompanied by the "Song of the Wagonmaster" by The Sons of the Pioneers emphasizing the highs and lows of the rolling life. There is a lot of music in Wagonmaster, over such montages, that one might be distracted from some of the more beautifully comp0sed shots, or the rigors it took to achieve them, but to say it's a "musical" (as some appreciative writers have stated) may be stating it too strongly, considering the amount of song and group-musicianship in others of his works.
As the Clegg's silently take to the hills, watching their backs, two horse-traders ("That's my business!"), Travis (Ben Johnson) and Sandy (Harry Carey, Jr.) ride out of Navajo Country with their latest acquisitions, trying to calculate their fortunes at $30 a head. They pull into Crystal City, the town still recovering from the recent murderous bank robbery and the Sheriff makes a show of checking the ponies while actually appraising the men attached to them—they're neither the type nor the number.
Convincing the Sheriff enough of their innocence to sell him a pony—and play a prank that sets the horse, with the Sheriff temporarily attached, careening into the streets—the two plan to rest up in town to play a few rounds of "High-Low-Jick, Jack, Ginny and the Bean Gun," which, besides the passing of funds, will give Travis his own assessment of the town and his future fortunes, given a conversation he'd had previously that day.
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| "I'm in" |
It's a big country out West—it was filmed in Moab, Utah (out-of-reach in order to discourage visits by producers) and parts of Monument Valley (to take advantage of extras from the Navajo nation, some familiar faces from other Ford productions can be seen among the Natives), but being close to the outskirts of civilization—that being Crystal City—the wagon train comes across others of their outcasts, which the sheriff listed as "Mormons, Cleggses, showfolk, horsetraders." The Mormons are far enough along that water is in short supply when they come across #3 in the list: Dr. A. Locksley Hall (Alan Mowbray), travelling showman and rumored dentist, selling a healing elixir, accompanied by two women no one would confuse with nurses Fleuretty Phyffe (Ruth Clifford) and Denver (Joanne Dru, who had just featured in Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon). When they're found, they have run out of water, and are staying alive—but not on their feet—with the doctor's snake-oil.
Liquor and loose women are usually not a good mix with Mormons, but as the party is in a terrible spot, they're allowed to be party to the train, at least until they reach water. Being show-folk, they don't quite understand the necessity of rationing water with no shaving and no showers.
But outcasts attract, and though the Mormons keep the "show-folk" at arm's length, Elder Wiggs has enough of a past with (what he calls) "hootchy-kootchy shows", he can see Miss Fleuretty as "a fine figure of a woman" (she's loyal to the doctor, however), and Travis and Denver have one of those passive-aggressive flirtations that pop up in Ford films with strong women and cowed boys. Although the journey involves struggle, generally everyone is doing the right thing, perhaps due to their empathy with their lot as outsiders or undesirables, perhaps to their religious beliefs, regardless of their faith—extending to the Native Nahajo's who welcome them into their camp, as Mormons have a reputation for being less dishonest than other whites.
It was one of director Ford's favorite films, despite it lack of success at the box-office. That maybe entirely due to the vision that he held for it and his view of how well the task was accomplished—what we now call the "signal to noise" ratio.*
Better than The Searchers, though? To my mind, no. But, then, The Searchers is a study in human nature and its worst qualities in regards to race prejudices, whereas Wagonmaster points to the best instincts, despite the impact of such things. Wagonmaster has hope and looks ahead, not back.
It's a beautiful film to watch, and one to cherish.
It's a beautiful film to watch, and one to cherish.
