WAGON MASTER: Blu-ray (RKO/Argosy, 1950) Warner Archive

One of John Ford’s unsung classics, 1950’s Wagon Master crept into the pantheon of Ford master strokes of genius right between 1949’s wildly popular She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 1950’s adventuresome Rio Grande; all but swamped by the rivaling success of these two pictures, and further discounted by the critics in its own time, chiefly because it lacked any viable ‘stars.’  Indeed, Ford chose to forgo his usual ‘good luck’ charm – John Wayne, and cast Wagon Master from his stock company of well-beyond-competent character actors, including Charles Kemper, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Joanne Dru. Although Wagon Master did respectable business it still lost money in its day and would never come to be regarded as part of Ford’s truly ‘great’ canon; a shame, since few of Ford’s western-themed legends of yore are as subtly nuanced or poignantly relayed. Made for RKO, then in the late stages of its own imploding glory days, Wagon Master benefits from Patrick Ford and Frank S. Nugent’s brilliantly conceived screenplay, charting the perilous course of a Mormon pioneer wagon train, bound for Utah’s San Juan River. If Wagon Master is regarded at all today, it likely gets the nod for inspiring TV’s Wagon Train, a popular series that ran on NBC, then ABC, from 1957 to 1965 and also starred Ward Bond until his death in 1960. And Wagon Master is rumored to have been a personal fav of Ford’s. Most certainly, it was one of his passion projects.  

It should be noted that the oft’ irascible Ford, although taking his work seriously, never considered his profession all that special. “Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals,” Ford explained, “Directing is not a mystery. It's not an art. The main thing about directing is, photograph the people’s eyes. To be quite blunt – I make pictures for money…to pay the rent. There are some great artists in the business, but I am not one of them. I love making pictures but I don’t like talking about them.” Rather affectingly, Wagon Master is a poem to progress, perhaps at its most tender and temperate; Bert Glennon’s superb B&W cinematography filling the eye with a visual sweep that comes to exemplify the American ideal and spirit of freedom.  We witness a fledgling community take root; the daily struggles of life on a seemingly inhospitable landscape, given purpose to an otherwise aimless saga with no real impetus to propel the narrative ahead. In hindsight, it is easy to see why Wagon Master did not dazzle the critics in 1950. It lacks the flourish of excitement and set pieces made popular in other Ford classics. And yet, Ford proves – as though proof were needed – not every tale to emerge from Hollywood’s western theater need possess a cavalry charge or Indian fight to be engaging and sincere. “When in doubt, make a western,” Ford once acknowledged, “I like, as a director and a spectator, simple, direct, frank films. Nothing disgusts me more than snobbism, mannerism, technical gratuity... and, most of all, intellectualism.”

Wagon Master is among Ford’s sparest achievements – partly, due to its tightly afforded $999,370 budget, but mostly in keeping with Ford’s own designs to shoot only what was necessary to tell a good story – sans embellishments of any kind. Despite the economizing, the picture is imbued with an almost surreal visual splendor, the magnificent river-crossing of the Mormon train under the main titles (repeated stock shots later on), and the memorable montage that concludes the show, elevating the drama to an entirely different plain of entertainment. Perhaps owing to its timing – made just four scant years after WWII – Ford made the executive decision to depict the Mormons as weaponless pacifists, susceptible to attack. History teaches that the real Mormons settling this land were not averse to taking up arms.  Mercifully, Ford blesses this defenseless brood with an amiable guide, Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) a wayfaring horse trader and wagon master of this train, and, who comes to their aid for a brief gun battle precipitated by the murder of one of the unarmed Mormon extras. Although distributed by RKO, Wagon Master was produced by Argosy Pictures, the fifth picture for the indie company co-founded by Ford and the prophetic, Merian C. Cooper, expressly to allow Ford his girth in the creative decision-making process – an artistic concession no ‘major’ studio would share. The idea for the story came to Ford during his final days on She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, unusual for Ford, who preferred to work from a script submitted to him, rather than ideas he had cultivated on his own. And although Ford commissioned Patrick Ford and Frank S. Nugent to write a screenplay, this was to be altered significantly by Ford as shooting on Wagon Master progressed. Seeking a ‘different look’ for the picture, Ford traded in the towering stone buttresses of Monument Valley for the sparse Spanish Valley, south-west of Moab, Utah, hiring Bert Glennon, with whom he had already worked on some of his greatest westerns, to create the stunningly handsome visual style of the piece.  Wagon Master had one of the swiftest schedules of any Ford picture – less than 30 days – the raw footage, then handed over to editor, Jack Murray who, like Glennon, was a Ford alumnus – in Murray’s case, of six pictures.  

In hindsight, Wagon Master is practically ‘experimental’ in its narrative choices and nearly invulnerable to summarization; a depiction of all life, distilled, though never diluted, as one never-ending struggle for which the best hope of survival is to merely advance with clear-eyed bravery and a moral certitude. Not since Ford’s sprawling silent epic, The Iron Horse (1924) had he been so intensely focused on the sheer physicality of conquering the land. Ingeniously interpolated in this monumental crossing, are fragmented, if congenial, and sometimes confrontational exchanges; a real saga of people as people – not the usual cardboard cutouts in a movie.  And Ford’s perpetual motion, always moving forward gently, steering in only one direction, takes its time meandering through various vignettes that anchor us to his sense of burgeoning community, the plot seemingly to sway side to side, and, end to end in this winding cavalcade of weary travelers – at times, with a shameless streak of sentiment, for which Ford often surprises us with such sincerity of the heart, it stirs deeper emotions from within. Take the dance as a perfect example, Ford culling together this unlike brood of adventurers, whores and horse traders to partake of a common gesture of faith in one another; all of the usual societal aspersions – the slum prudery of human judgment – cast aside in the spirit of friendship. Ford, counterbalances this tender moment of belonging, with one of pure tension that almost threatens to turn everything asunder; the arrival of the Clegg clan, Shiloh (Charles Kemper), Floyd (James Arness), Reese (Fred Libby) Jesse (Mickey Simpson) and Luke (Hank Worden) – malcontents against their fragile unity.

The final important ingredient in Wagon Master is undeniably its score and songs. More than any other Ford western, Wagon Master seems, at times, entirely to surrender its western roots and become a sort of ‘rhythm on the range’ musical hybrid without actually taking on the full-blown character traits of the Hollywood musical. Richard Hageman’s underscore (his last for Ford, after seven films) is wed to a never-ending cornucopia of hymns and ballads performed by Sons of the Pioneers. Far beyond ‘adding flavor’ to the piece, these near wall-to-wall orchestrations and songs create a sort of western symphony for Wagon Master that, at times, is almost operatic.  Virtually all of the picture’s pivotal sequences are played against a melody. Popular Arizona-born balladeer, Stan Jones penned 4 original tunes for the Sons of the Pioneers, and contributed his musical styling to an ardent interpretation of the time-honored Mormon hymn, ‘Come, Come Ye Saints’ – recorded by the Robert Mitchell Boys’ Choir. It remains one of those Hollywood ironies that with so much intensity and passion for the work, so many hearty performances bursting forth, and, such a grand prospect for achieving yet another ‘instant’ classic in the western milieu, that Wagon Master instead was a disappointment for all concerned; the picture, losing $6500 upon its initial release, hardly a nightmarish deficit to be sure; alas, one RKO equally could not afford, and, effectively to severe Argosy’s alliance with the studio.

Wagon Master opens with a preamble - a fatal theft perpetuated by the Cleggs. Circa 1880 - a Mormon wagon train led by Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) arrives at the modest outpost of Crystal City in need of a wagon master to take them onto their destination – San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory. Wiggs and his brood are being expelled from Crystal City by the prejudiced townsfolk. At the last-minute, horse traders, Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey, Jr.) accept the assignment of bringing these careworn men and women to safety. Embarking upon their journey west, the train is joined by a medicine show troupe, stranded without water en route to California. Ford gingerly introduces us to two unlikely romances brewing; the first, between Travis and Denver (Joanne Dru), an entertainer with the medicine troupe; the other, between Sandy and Prudence Perkins (Kathleen O’Malley). From here, the narrative seemingly becomes even more loose and free-flowing; Ford, navigating us through the aforementioned Mormon square dance, a respite after their successful desert crossing, and engaging in a pow-wow with a band of Navajo. The mood is congenial and welcoming; that is, until the Cleggs, fleeing a posse from Crystal City, force themselves upon the wagon train. Despite insurmountable odds, the train triumphs over an encounter with the posse, a washed-out trail barring their way, and, a terrific skirmish with the bloodthirsty Cleggs. Having conquered these various adversities, Ford leaves us and the wagon train on the edge of finding their promised land; a montage of understated and yet more profound images, typifying and honing the finer points already brought out in the narrative.

When it premiered, Wagon Master received rather typical praise, Variety calling it a ‘good outdoor action film’ with ‘leavening comedy moments’ – which, respectfully, does the movie a complete injustice. Ford’s tome goes well beyond fun and thrills – although, each is decidedly present herein. Wagon Master is not so much a ‘story’ as an enlivened and ambitious slice of Americana that time – even by 1950 – had almost forgotten, and, the Hollywood western, in general, had left unexplored in favor of its endless re-telling of cowboys and Indians.  Yet, Wagon Master’s genuineness is uncannily true to life and, typical of Ford’s best work, imbued with that earthy bond between these characters and the land. These are real people, rather than reel characters; possessing enough of the ‘stock’ qualities for which western aficionados, and even rank novices to the genre, will immediately pick up on as par for the course. But Ford goes far, far deeper into these people, burrowing into their individual souls and collective can-do spirit. And he has hand-picked actors who, despite their lack of ‘star power’ are etched into our collective memory at a glance as indelibly weathered, hearty, forthright, figures from that western milieu, offering us something more – something greater than the usual rough n’ tumblers of future progress, lusting after life on their own terms, seemingly, to be making up the rules as they go along. Wagon Master emphasizes the commonality of mankind, its suffrage and forbearance. For weaves these threads into his tome with an undeniable visual majesty, but also, with his adoration and emphasis on these lives well-lived, and worthy of our rekindled respect.  

Another quality affair from the Warner Archive (WAC). RKO’s film library was not exactly the best cared for in the intervening decades after that studio’s implosion, but the elements on tap here were either in superb shape to begin with, or have undergone a major restoration effort to preserve them since. Knowing the good people at WAC, I suspect a little bit of good fortune has been augmented with a considerable effort to make Wagon Master ready for its hi-def debut. In 1080p, Bert Glennon’s cinematography shines with gorgeous tonality, exceptional clarity, exquisite black levels, and a fine patina of film grain looking very indigenous to its source. Age-related artifacts have all but been eradicated (an errant scratch or speckle here and there, still visible). Given the vintage of the movie, and the aforementioned lack of preservation applied by previous custodians, what WAC has achieved herein is nothing short of a very welcomed miracle. There is nothing to complain about here. The DTS mono audio is crisp without ever sounding strident, and with hiss and pop removed. One shortcoming: no extras. A pity. Otherwise, an absolute ‘must have’ for Ford aficionados, and, western film lovers. One of the indisputably most magnificent-looking western movies ever made.  Very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

0