Portrait of the Artist as a Hoochie Coochie Dancer

Wagon Master blogging

for

The John Ford Blogathon,

essay 6 of 6

John Ford IS Denver

Joanne Dru as Denver in Wagon Master (1950).

John Ford, circa 1946, posing in front
of his portrait and Oscar.
Photo from Los Angeles Daily News,
posted on Wikimedia Commons.

John Ford is at the center of Wagon Master (1950), and he’s hidden in plain sight.  A portrait of the secret John Ford is there for all to see.  It’s my contention that the character that Ford most deeply identified with—and into whom he slyly placed his personal strategies for getting by in the world—is Denver, the hoochie coochie performer played by Joanne Dru.

No wonder the old fox often cited Wagon Master as his personal favorite film!

I’m basing the following analysis on three personality characteristics shared by Ford and Denver, as well as the way that Denver’s personality is expressed in two scenes.  The second and third of the personality characteristics are very minor and aren’t needed to buttress my argument;  the first personality characteristic is the important one.  The two scenes that I’ll discuss are among the most rigorously planned, composed, and executed in the Ford canon.

But some preliminary notes first:  There is absolutely no need to claim that a director identifies with any single character in his movie.  I doubt it happens often.  I don’t go around looking for clandestine portraits of the author hidden in films.  Finding this one was a complete surprise.

And I also want to place Denver’s sexuality on the back burner for much of this analysis, as well.  Yes, she is one of the most delightfully expressive—and unapologetic—sexual characters in a Ford movie, but her character goes much deeper than this.  I think Ford was even more interested in other aspects of her personality.

Denver (Joanne Dru) as the Mormons debate whether to
allow the medicine show to accompany their wagon train.

F.W. Murnau, circa 1920,
from Wikimedia Commons.

John Ford experienced an aesthetic breakthrough in the late 1920s when exposed to the work of filmmaker F.W. Murnau, who first gained acclaim for his work in Germany on movies like Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), and Faust (1926).  The Fox studio where Ford worked brought Murnau to Hollywood, and offered him boundless resources to make a Hollywood film in the style of his European achievements.  All the directors at the studio watched closely as Murnau set to work making Sunrise (1927), and Murnau’s methods began to inform their own work.  In his Ford biography Print the Legend, Scott Eyman quotes film historian William K. Everson:  “Fox’s directors, sincerely in awe of Murnau, literally made their films in his image as a kind of homage to him.”

For the first time, Ford felt free to openly express his artistic side.  In movies like Four Sons (1928) and Hangman’s House (1928), he adopted Murnau’s elaborate tracking shots, chiaroscuro lighting effects, prolonged closeups, and impressionistic dissolves.  He realized that Murnau employed this broad slate of artistic tools in a bold endeavor to visually depict mental states on film.

Ford’s most Murnau-influenced movies in the late 1920s and early 30s were both praised and criticized for their extreme artiness (in time—and partially due to Ford’s own vigorous promotion of a non-nonsense persona—the nature of these early works were largely forgotten).  As Ford moved into his mature period, with movies like Stagecoach (1939), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), and How Green Was My Valley (1941), he learned to integrate the Murnau effects that he still loved more seamlessly into his storytelling.  They were still there, but carefully reserved for particular emphasis.  He used them with restraint to accentuate the most special moments within his movies.

Joanne Dru as Denver.

In Wagon Master, these moments center on Denver.

The sentimental core:  John Ford did everything possible to conceal his artistic and sentimental core personality.  And, to a great extent, he succeeded.  He did this for reasons of personal insecurity, coupled with his obsessive need to maintain unflinching loyalty from his crews and broad respect within the industry.

In his book Women in the Films of John Ford, David Meuel writes about how this surface image of Ford was, in reality, an artful act of camouflage:

“… there’s Ford himself, who consciously cultivated a tough-guy, man’s man image in order—according to many counts—to mask his extraordinarily sensitive nature.  Always insecure about not appearing strong and in total control among his peers, he may have been tentative about touting his ongoing interest in women’s characters and issues that were important to them.  For a man of his time, it may have seemed unmanly.”

Ford biographer Scott Eyman recounts a particularly revealing anecdote in Print the Legend about the conflict between the director’s outward personality and his inward sensitivity:

“Frank Baker remembered Ford being accosted outside his office by an old actor from the Universal days whose wife needed an operation.  He asked Ford for $200.  Ford stared, then backed away, then launched himself at the actor, knocking him down.  ‘How dare you come here like this?’ he screamed.  ‘Who do you think you are to talk to me this way?’

“Baker witnessed this exchange, and also witnessed Ford’s business manager Fred Totman coming out of the office door with a check for $1,000.  Totman ordered Ford’s chauffeur to drive the man home, where an ambulance transported the woman and her husband to San Francisco for the operation.

“Baker told the story to Frank (Francis) Ford, who was amazed.  ‘I’ve been trying to figure Jack since the day he was born,’ Frank told Baker.  ‘This is the key.  Any moment, if that old actor had kept talking, people would have realized what a softy Jack is.  He couldn’t have stood that sad story without breaking down.  He’s built this whole legend of toughness around himself to protect his softness.’”

In Wagon Master, Denver is the character who has intentionally constructed a tough outward persona to conceal her inward sensitivity.  She does not share her thoughts with the world.  Ford expresses Denver’s internal world purely through visual means because her dialogue must remain singularly tough.

Denver in Wagon Master.

She tells her admirer Travis Blue (Ben Johnson):  “Look, you don’t have to protect me…  And I don’t need any sympathy either.  I’ve done nothing I need be ashamed of no matter what you and your friends think.”

When her fellow medicine-show traveler Fleuretty Phyffe (Ruth Clifford) notes that Travis seems to like her, Denver responds, “That rube…”

And when Travis finally tells her that he’d like to continue to see her, she says, “Thanks.  Don’t bank on it.  We move around.  In a medicine show, you have to (in order) to keep healthy.”  Then Travis proposes marriage, and she simply responds, “Goodbye, fella.”

That’s the way Denver talks—that’s the external Denver.  She never says anything warm or pleasant.  It’s all taunts, teases, and bluster.  And this leaves Ford having to fall back on his old Murnau strategies to reveal the internal Denver, the woman who’s striving to build a legend of toughness to protect her softness (to borrow that phrase from Frank Ford).  John Ford first attempts to communicate Denver’s inner state in the shot that directly follows the bathwater scene where Travis informs her that she’s not to waste water and she charmingly flirts in response.  

Denver needs time to think, barely
acknowledging the teasing of her friend.

Denver steps around the wagon, entering the frame in a medium shot.  The camera slightly tilts up as she walks forward and leans against a post.  Dru’s performance conveys a private moment as she tries to regain her composure—her carefully constructed loner attitude.  Fleuretty enters the frame, comments to Denver that she has an admirer, and passes out of the frame.  Then Denver steps closer to the camera, into closeup now, the camera panning slightly to keep her centered in the frame.  She relaxes against the wagon, her arms folded defensively, and there’s a privileged moment of silence—a time for the viewer to contemplate a character in thought.  Her one line, “That rube…,” matches her folded arms.  She’s protecting herself from her feelings.  But the camera continues to observe her after the line as she returns to silent thought, with the scene ending with a slow dissolve that returns us to a far shot of the wagon trains on their unfolding journey.

The scene continues: A privileged moment for Denver.

Denver’s other key scene is the one where Travis goes “a-courtin’” and tentatively proposes marriage to her.  Ford reserves his masterful use of backward tracking shots for important scenes like this.  The actors take their time with the dialogue, each comfortable with a rhythm of slow delivery and frequent silences.  When Denver realizes what Travis is saying, she steps forward, her bonnet shielding her face from Travis so he can’t see her very out-of-character smile.  Then she composes herself, turns back to him, and says goodbye.  That’s when the scene explodes.

Ford cuts from a medium shot to a more distant shot that initially includes the horse Steel, Travis, and Denver, who is in the center of the frame.  Denver lifts her skirt and runs from him, the camera reverse tracking and panning to keep her at center.  She runs and runs and the camera stays on her.  When she stumbles, the camera (still tracking) tilts downward to keep our attention fixed on her.  And she gets up, glances tentatively back, then resolves herself and runs again, her head held high as she tries to revert back to character.

Denver runs, falls, and runs again.

Cut back to Travis, and then a far shot from his perspective as Denver catches up with her wagon.  Travis mounts his horse and rides away.  Then comes the last major shot of the sequence:

The image of Travis riding away dissolves to Denver sitting in the open rear of the medicine show wagon, smoking a cigarette.  As David Meuel observes in Women in the Films of John Ford, it’s an “almost post-coital pose” (coming, I might add, after the almost-orgasmic moment of her fall).  The last time the viewer saw her with a cigarette was in her introductory scene, where Travis had lit a cigarette for her and she had choked on it.  Now she’s perfectly calm, contentedly smiling to herself.  The camera almost imperceptibly moves closer, allowing us to enjoy the privilege of watching a woman alone, thinking.

Dissolve to Denver in the back of the wagon, smoking and thinking.

No other character in Wagon Master enjoys private moments like this, with the camera silently observing and moving ever closer, forcing the viewer to consider a woman’s perspective.  It’s the only way for Ford to reveal Denver’s dual personality.  And Ford deeply understands her personality because it is so close to his own.

Denver’s Profession:  Most of the critical literature on Wagon Master refers to Denver as a prostitute.  This isn’t unreasonable.  Certainly, showgirls are presented as prostitutes in numerous Hollywood westerns.  And, within Ford’s own body of work, Denver echoes the presentation of the prostitute Dallas (an overt prostitute) in the classic Stagecoach.

Denver (Joanne Dru) with the other members
of the traveling medicine show, played by
Ruth Clifford and Alan Mowbray.

But Wagon Master doesn’t emphasize Denver as a prostitute.  It depicts her as an entertainer, a core part of a stock company that travels on the frontier, putting on shows.  The general critical assumption is that her line, “I’ve done nothing I need be ashamed of no matter what you and your friends think,” refers to sexual activity but in this context it could also refer to her discomfort with her role as a traveling entertainer.

This reminds me of John Ford’s ongoing belittling of his chosen profession.  He and his old filmmaking mentor Harry Carey (Sr.) would get together at Carey’s ranch and discuss anything but the movies.  Harry Carey, Jr. recalls in his memoir Company of Heroes that his father “didn’t give a damn about the movies,” and Ford seems to have picked up on this as an appropriate attitude to express to the world.

Like Ford, Denver is similarly torn about her profession.  She acts like she doesn’t give a damn about it in public, but her actions continually show that she is 100% committed to the troupe she works with.

Denver, drunk, in her first scene.

Denver on a Bender:  While it may not have been entirely of her own choosing (the famished troupe has turned to drinking its own highly-alcoholic elixir), Denver is introduced to the film at the tail-end of a major bender.  She’s sloshy drunk.  But then she sobers up and doesn’t take another drink for the duration of the picture.  When she’s sober, she’s entirely professional.

Anyone who’s read about John Ford will recognize the pattern of his binge drinking, usually restricted to the down periods between movies.  When he was on the job, he kept alcohol at a distance.  It’s a very minor point in common between Ford and Denver, but yet another interesting similarity between the two.

Finally, a Difference Between the Two:  This is the movies after all, so for Denver, everything ends happily.

A happy ending for Travis and Denver.

Wagons West

Stan Jones and the Sons of the Pioneers never released a record of their songs for Wagon Master.  I’m not sure if anyone’s even published the lyrics before.  For this blog series, I’ve listened closely to the movie’s songs and attempted to capture the lyrics as accurately as possible.  It’s really increased my appreciation of Stan Jones as a composer and lyricist.

“Wagons West,” the first song in Wagon Master, sets the scene, while also framing the movie as an exercise in nostalgia.  It isn’t written as a faux-contemporary folk song of the 1850s but as a 1950 song looking back a century into the past.

A hundred years have come and gone since 1849

But the ghostly wagons rolling west

Are ever brought to mind

Their old rocking creakin’ wheels

Were heard from shore to shore

And always in the hearts of men

It lives forevermore:

Rollin’!  Rollin’!  Rollin’! Rollin’!  (repeat)

Wagons west are rolling

Out where winds are blowing

’cross rivers and plains

Through sand and through rain

Goes the mighty wagon train.

Special thanks to Paula Vitaris who manages the Ben Johnson Fan Page for generously sharing screen captures and providing valuable background information and insight! 

Reference Sources

Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman

About John Ford by Lindsay Anderson

John Ford: The Man and His Films by Ted Gallagher

The Nicest Fella: The Life of Ben Johnson by Richard D. Jensen

Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company by Harry Carey Jr.

Lest We Forget: The John Ford Stock Company by Bill Levy
Women in the Films of John Ford by David Meuel

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, edited by Kathryn Kalinak (essay “John Ford, Walt Disney, and Sons of the Pioneers” by Ross Care)

When Hollywood Came to Town:  A History of Movie Making in Utah by James D’Arc

Wagon Master Warner Home Video DVD commentary by Harry Carey Jr. and Peter Bogdanovich

Watch Wagon Master...

Purchase the Wagon Master DVD at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Wagon Master at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2014 Lee Price

Grandma's Take on Wagon Master

Wagon Master blogging

for

The John Ford Blogathon,

essay 5 of 6

A Western for My Grandmother

Ben Johnson in the climactic gunfight in Wagon Master (1950).

Grandma Anderson loved westerns.  For me, it was one of those things that you just take for granted about a close family member… and then one day they’re gone and you wonder why you never talked about the subject.  Now I’ve belatedly come to love westerns too, and my questions languish unanswered.  It’s 25 years too late.  Questions like —

·        What was the first western you saw?

·        Who was your favorite western star?

·        How did westerns change over the years?

·        What did you most want to see when you finally had a chance to travel out west?

·        Did you see Wagon Master?  Did you like it?

At best, I can hazard a guess at what some of my grandmother’s answers might have been.

What was the first western you saw? 

Maud Elizabeth Clem.

My grandmother, Maud Elizabeth Clem, was born in Luray, Virginia, located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains (she’d want me to note that!), in 1902.  This means she was a baby when movies were in their infancy and she grew up right alongside them.  We know there was a movie theater in nearby Culpeper because my grandmother’s father worked as a projectionist there.  And Theodore Carl Anderson, a northerner working in the south, accepted a part-time job playing trumpet in the orchestra, accompanying the silent movies.  So I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume that this couple who would be my grandparents, Theodore and Maud, enjoyed some movies together in the Culpeper Theater in the early 1920s, prior to their marriage in 1923.

In those days, she might have enjoyed the westerns of William S. Hart, Bronco “Billy” Anderson (doubtless getting a kick out of the fact that her beau had the same last name!), Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, and Tom Mix.  But what I really want to know is what she thought of Harry Carey, early western star and father of Wagon Master co-star Harry Carey, Jr.  Did she see some of 27 westerns that Carey made with a young John Ford, still in his twenties(!), directing?  Most are lost now.  What might she have remembered?

I visited Culpeper, Virginia, in 2012.  Today, the Nu Way Image
Salon is located on the site of the old Culpeper Theater.
The owners showed me these period photos of the theater
where my great-grandfather worked as projectionist and
my grandfather played trumpet in the orchestra.

Who was your favorite star?

When you’ve watched westerns for more than fifty years, you can probably work through a lot of favorite stars.  In the thirties, she would have followed the singing cowboys, the cowboy serials, and the long “b” western apprenticeship of John Wayne.  When television came along in the early 1950s, she and her husband were among the first in town to buy a TV.  The popular television cowboys were just fine with her, too.  She liked them all.

How did westerns change over the years?

Movies were for fun.  I doubt she noticed the changes as they slowly unfolded.  She started going to movies in Virginia in the silent era, was living on Long Island when talkies became the new sensation, and was settled in Riverhead, New York, when they bought that first television.  Life around her was changing fast, but to her, the westerns probably weren’t changing much at all.  There were good guys, bad guys, and Indians;  there were horses and wagon trains;  and there were gunfights and chases.  It was quintessentially American entertainment.

What did you most want to see when you finally had a chance to travel out west?

When they were in their 50s, my grandmother and grandfather embarked on their dream vacation, traveling west in a camper.  They took a northern route, exploring the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, and Redwood National Park.  They listened to lots of Johnny Cash on the radio and became big fans.  A couple of years later, our family joined them for a similar trip, taking a southern route this time and visiting sites like the Alamo, a pathetic trickle of a Rio Grande, Tombstone, the Petrified Forest, and the Grand Canyon.  I think my grandmother was the one really excited about the Alamo and Tombstone, and she would have been the one most disappointed in the Rio Grande, too.  It looked so much bigger in the movies.

Did you see Wagon Master?  Did you like it?

If a western was playing at the Riverhead Theater in 1950, chances are that Grandma saw it.  She liked going to the movies, and she wouldn’t miss a western if she could help it.  I bet she liked Wagon Master, too.  After all, it had good guys, bad guys, and Indians;  horses and wagon trains;  and gunfights and chases.  That’s more than enough to make a good western.  Just settle back and enjoy.

The Riverhead Theater, probably 1920s.  Photo uploaded
by TinselToes on the Cinema Treasures website.

The Uncredited Stars of Wagon Master

I love the way Wagon Master respects its animal stars.  One of my favorite moments belongs to Ward Bond.  Riding ahead of the wagon train with Travis Blue (Ben Johnson), Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) is thrown by his horse and comes up swearing.  Travis points out that the horse was avoiding quicksand and may have saved his life.  Elder Wiggs thinks a minute, turns to the horse, and says a heartfelt, “Sorry, horse.”

Naturally, when a western has two heroes (Ben Johnson and Harry Carey, Jr.), there are going to be two horses right there with them.  In scene after scene, their horses provide solid support.

Ben Johnson on Steel in Wagon Master (1950).

Ben Johnson rides Steel, a sorrel stallion owned by Johnson’s father-in-law Clarence “Fat” Jones.  The Fat Jones Stables supplied many of the horses used in countless Hollywood westerns.  Steel was one of his star horses, very calm and able to consistently deliver for demanding film crews on tight schedules.  Steel was a handsome chestnut horse with a distinctive white blaze down his face.  Some of the biggest names in town—John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Henry Fonda, and Clark Gable—rode Steel and he made them look good.  But everyone knew he was Johnson’s horse.  Johnson rode Steel in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, and Rio Grande and even took him out for a turn on the rodeo circuit.

Ben Johnson on Bingo in Wagon Master (1950).

Like most stars, Steel had his own stunt double.  For a major chase scene, like the one where Johnson is pursued by a band of Navajo in Wagon Master, Bingo was brought in for the honors.  And Bingo can MOVE!

Harry Carey, Jr. on Mormon in Wagon Master (1950).

Harry Carey, Jr. rode his own horse, Mormon, who received his name because he was born and raised in Saint George, Utah.  In his memoir Company of Heroes, Carey writes about Ford’s shock at hearing the horse’s name.  Apparently, Ford was planning on asking Carey to co-star in his new western about Mormon pioneers and approached Carey while he was grooming his horse.  Ford casually asked the horse’s name and was shocked to hear Carey answer, “Mormon.”  That settled it for Ford.  “How would you like to ride him in a western?” he asked.  And Carey responded, “Boy, that would be great!”

The dog photobombs the credits.

It’s not all horses in Wagon Master.  Dogs add to the excitement, too.  In order to insert a little more action to a shot, John Ford loved to show a dog dashing across the screen.  Wagon Master is full of dogs.  In fact, the dog theme is introduced in the credits, when a beautifully composed image of a turning wagon wheel is photobombed by one of the dogs.  That’s just the beginning of their canine scene-stealing throughout the movie.  Dogs meant family for Ford;  if the wagon train was carrying dogs, it meant there were good families on the move.

Rollin’ Dust

Dog and family in Wagon
Master's "Rollin' Dust"
scene.

Accompanied by Harry Carey, Jr., the actor George O’Brien asked John Ford if he could bring a “genius of western music” by his office.  Ford agreed, and so they brought in songwriter Stan Jones with his guitar.  Jones sang his current hit, the now-standard “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” and then introduced an as-yet unrecorded song.  As described in Company of Heroes, Jones said, “Mr. Ford, I wrote a sort of sequel to ‘Ghost Riders’ called ‘Rollin’ Dust.’  I’d like to sing that, too, if it’s okay.  I really like it better myself.”

Rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust…

We ride along the same trails

As long long ago

And sparks of hoofbeats glitter

In the shadows as they go

Out across the backlands

Where the dust has laid so long

You see them ropin’ through the night

And hear their riding song:

Rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust, rollin’ dust…

Ford bought it on the spot.  “I need that song abut the ghost town—the one you just sang—for my picture.”  And then Ford asked for three more in the same vein, which Jones quickly delivered on.

“Rollin’ Dust” is sung at a low point in the journey, accompanying an atmospheric slow montage of blowing dust and bone-tired people.

Another shot from the "Rollin' Dust" scene, beautifully
filmed by cinematographer Bert Glennon.

Special thanks to Paula Vitaris who manages the Ben Johnson Fan Page for generously sharing screen captures and providing valuable background information and insight! 

Reference Sources

Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman

About John Ford by Lindsay Anderson

John Ford: The Man and His Films by Ted Gallagher

The Nicest Fella: The Life of Ben Johnson by Richard D. Jensen

Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company by Harry Carey Jr.

Lest We Forget: The John Ford Stock Company by Bill Levy

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, edited by Kathryn Kalinak (essay “John Ford, Walt Disney, and Sons of the Pioneers” by Ross Care)

When Hollywood Came to Town:  A History of Movie Making in Utah by James D’Arc

Wagon Master Warner Home Video DVD commentary by Harry Carey Jr. and Peter Bogdanovich

Watch Wagon Master...

Purchase the Wagon Master DVD at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Wagon Master at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2014 Lee Price

John Ford in Navajo Country

Wagon Master blogging

for

The John Ford Blogathon,

essay 4 of 6

Wagon Master:  No Indians Die

John Ford wanted real faces in his films.  While he would settle for Hollywood professionals when necessary, his preference was for authenticity over professionalism.  Ford liked the rugged look of the residents of Moab, the small Utah town that served as the hub for filming Wagon Master (1950).  He welcomed the locals as extras.

Navajo actors playing Navajo Indians
 in Wagon Master (1950).

But Ford imported his Indians from Monument Valley, approximately 150 miles south of Moab.  When filming his classic film Stagecoach (1939) ten years earlier, Ford was introduced both to Monument Valley and the Diné—the Navajo people who lived in the area.  He instinctively liked and trusted them.  Over time, many came to return the respect, calling Ford “Natani Nez” which means “tall leader.”  A core of about fifty Navajo emerged who would serve from that point on as Ford’s all-purpose Indians (regardless of the tribe they were supposed to be from).   

John Stanley often served as the unofficial leader of Ford’s Indian crew, organizing his team and translating for the Hollywood folk.  Other key players among the Navajo were Bob Many Mules, Harry Black Horse, Pete Gray Eyes, George Holliday, Billy Yellow, Talks a Lot, Keith Smith, Lee and Frank Bradley, Stanley’s father Jack, and his brother Yellow Hair.  Ford treated them fairly well, but they rarely received credit and their names remain largely absent from the standard film histories.

During the winter of 1948, less than a year before the filming of Wagon Master, an unusually deep snow endangered the Native inhabitants of Monument Valley.  According to Scott Eyman in the Ford biography Print the Legend, Ford swiftly and generously responded with Operation Haylift, arranging for friends in the military to airdrop food to the Navajo.  The following fall, he invited the Navajo wing of the Ford stock company to Moab for filming of his latest western.

Lee Bradley on right as the leader of the
Navajo band in Wagon Master (1950).

For the only time on a John Ford picture, the Navajo in Wagon Master were allowed to speak their own Navajo language on film.  During the first tense encounter between the Navajo and the Mormon settlers, Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) volunteers Sandy Owens (Harry Carey Jr.) to translate.  “He knows the language better than anyone,” Travis says.  There was some truth to this as Carey had learned more than a smattering of the language from his Navajo nurse while growing up on a ranch near Hollywood.  Linguistically, the exchange in Wagon Master is probably more authentic than you’d find in any other Hollywood western of the period.  The important speaking role of the Navajo chief is played by Lee Bradley with impressive authority.

Even though tensions between the cultures run high during the scene in the Navajo camp, the Indian viewpoint is respected.  Best of all, the situation is resolved peacefully.

I love that this is a John Ford western which prominently includes Indians—and in which no Indians die.

Harry Carey, Jr., Ben Johnson, and Ward Bond approach the Indians.

Jim Thorpe at the Dance

While most of the Indian actors in Wagon Master are Navajo, two are not.  Maria “Movita” Castenada, who plays the part of the woman attacked by an outlaw, was not Native American.  And the very memorable Jim Thorpe was a Native American, but not a Navajo.

Jim Thorpe at the 1912 Olympics.

Jim Thorpe came from Oklahoma, raised as a member of the Sac and Fox tribe.  He became an international sensation when he dominated the 1912 Olympics, winning gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon.  Then he became even more famous when he was stripped of his Olympic medals after the press revealed that he had played two seasons of semi-professional baseball.  Subsequently, Thorpe excelled in professional baseball, football, and basketball, gaining a reputation as the greatest all-around athlete of his day.

When the Great Depression hit, Thorpe was in his early 40s, his athletic career behind him.  Like so many others, he went to Hollywood, looking for work.  From 1931 on, he appeared in bit parts in more than fifty movies.  Wagon Master was the last of them, filmed when he was 61 years old.  The following year, he was hospitalized for lip cancer.  His health failing, he died of heart failure in 1953.

In Wagon Master, Jim Thorpe is the Indian who dances next to Jane Darwell, a core member of the John Ford stock company.  They share a fascinating shot together.  Thorpe inscrutably stares straight ahead, his large body moving to the rhythm.  Beside him, in strong contrast, Darwell is small and almost girlishly enthusiastic, looking up at her companion with an innocent amazement.

I bet Ford loved that shot.

Jim Thorpe and Jane Darwell at the dance at the Navajo camp.

Ford contrasts Thorpe and Darwell with another pairing of
Mormon pioneer and Navajo at the dance.

Navajo Tributes to John Ford

In Print the Legend, Scott Eyman’s invaluable biography of John Ford, Eyman recounts how the Navajo presented Ford with a ceremonial deer hide during the filming of The Searchers, six years after Wagon Master.  It was inscribed to Ford, with the second stanza adapted from a Navajo night chant:

We present this deer hide

to our fellow tribesman

Natani Nez

As a token of appreciation for the generosity

and friendship he has extended to us in

his many activities in our valley

In your travels may there be

beauty behind you

beauty on both sides of you

and beauty ahead of you

from your friends the Navajo of Monument Valley

Utah—Arizona

Many years later, when a statue of John Ford was dedicated in his hometown of Portland, Maine in 1998, a contingent of representatives from the Navajo Nation traveled across the country to participate in the ceremony.  At the age of 96, medicine man Billy Yellow, who had served as a member in good standing of Ford’s stock company, led a prayer in honor of the director who had brought the Navajo’s beautiful homeland to the attention of a vast worldwide audience.

John Ford's credit on Wagon Master (1950).

Special thanks to Paula Vitaris who manages the Ben Johnson Fan Page for generously sharing screen captures and providing valuable background information and insight! 

Reference Sources

Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman

About John Ford by Lindsay Anderson

John Ford: The Man and His Films by Ted Gallagher

The Nicest Fella: The Life of Ben Johnson by Richard D. Jensen

Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company by Harry Carey Jr.

Lest We Forget: The John Ford Stock Company by Bill Levy

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, edited by Kathryn Kalinak (essay “John Ford, Walt Disney, and Sons of the Pioneers” by Ross Care)

When Hollywood Came to Town:  A History of Movie Making in Utah by James D’Arc

Wagon Master Warner Home Video DVD commentary by Harry Carey Jr. and Peter Bogdanovich

Watch Wagon Master...

Purchase the Wagon Master DVD at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Wagon Master at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2014 Lee Price

Wagon Master's Promised Land

Wagon Master blogging

for

The John Ford Blogathon,

essay 3 of 6

Mormons Without Guns

Mormons on the move--heading west in this classic image
from John Ford's Wagon Master (1950).

“Guns are a big part of our state tradition. If you think of the Mormon pioneers, I mean, they came into the valley holding a plow in one hand and a gun in the other.”

Representative Carl Wimmer

Former member, Utah House of Representatives

I haven’t found anything in historical sources to refute Wimmer’s vision of two-fisted, gun-toting Mormon pioneers, but it sure isn’t the image you get in Wagon Master (1950)!  Director John Ford conceives of the Mormons as traveling without guns, an important plot point of the movie.

Plain folk in town:  Ward Bond, Russell Simpson,
and Kathleen O'Malley.

I wonder if Ford confused his Mormons with the Quakers?  Or maybe the Mennonites?  Or the Hutterites?  The plot of Wagon Master is consistently respectful of the peace church traditions held by those denominations, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has never professed a pacifist doctrine.  For that matter, Ford’s Catholic tradition usually hasn’t sided with the religious pacifists either (with a few notable exceptions).

Many critics have suggested that Ford’s presentation of these peaceful pioneers is meant to be viewed ironically.  The unarmed Mormons achieve their Promised Land only because they accept non-Mormon protectors—Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey, Jr.)—who gun down their enemies.

But I disagree with this critical consensus—which shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone who knows my personal Mennonite/Anabaptist convictions.  Solidly in the peace church tradition, these very un-Mormon-like pioneers are determined to remain steadfast in their faith and principles.  No, they probably wouldn’t make it to their Promised Land without Travis and Sandy but their convictions would remain intact.  They are presented as a people who live their faith.  If this means the bad guys shoot them down, so be it.

A farewell to violence:  Travis
throws his gun away.

John Ford’s presentation may not be historically valid for Utah or the Mormons, but it speaks to me.  I love the movie’s openness to accepting differing points of view—it’s a big tent movie that welcomes pacifists, show folk, horse traders, and gunfighters.  No one gets turned away.  Everyone’s invited to join the wagon train to the Promised Land.

Most telling of all, Travis turns his back on violence at the end in a seeming endorsement of the peace church tradition.  His participation in the final gun battle is his last violent act before gaining religion.  When we see him at the end, paired off with his girl Denver, I think we can assume that he’s found his home among these good people.  I see a purely happy ending, without a drop of irony.  Travis finds his Promised Land on the wagon trail, beside his girl, and without a gun.

John Fordian Geography

“Hell ain’t cussing.  It’s geography—the name of a place. Like you might say Abilene or Salt Lake City.”

Sandy Owens (Harry Carey, Jr.)

in Wagon Master (1950)

Geography never meant much in a John Ford western.  In his movies, the west is a mythic land where the town of Tombstone (located in the hot, parched lower desert of Arizona) can overlook Monument Valley (located on the high desert of the Colorado Plateau).

Pulling in to Crystal City, somewhere out west.

Wagon Master opens in the town of Crystal City.  If this is meant to be Crystal City, Colorado, it’s a location far south of both the Wyoming-based Mormon Trail and the Overland Route that most Mormon pioneers followed.  Now a ghost town, Crystal City was once a rugged Rocky Mountain mining town, located 200 miles west of Denver.  Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) refers to the Navajo country as lying to the southwest, which would match this location.

The goal of the Mormons is to reach the San Juan River Valley, “a valley that’s been reserved by the Lord” according to Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond).  The San Juan River flows through the Four Corners area, starting in southwestern Colorado then weaving through New Mexico and Arizona before meeting up with the Colorado River in southern Utah.  Despite the river’s presence, there isn’t much in the nature of a fertile green valley in this arid area.

According to James D’Arc’s book When Hollywood Came to Town, co-screenwriter Pat Ford (John Ford’s son) suggested “filming the story where it happened” and that’s what led the film crew to Moab.  But Moab isn’t on the San Juan River, which is located around 100 miles due south at its closest.

The time period of the movie seems to be shortly after Brigham Young arrived in Salt Lake City in 1847.  Since there is no mention of the Civil War (and Ford westerns frequently reference the Civil War), it would suggest that the story is taking place before 1861.  Pat Ford may have based his script in part on the Mormon establishment of the Elk Mountain Mission near Moab in 1855. The mission failed quickly.  The Mormons in Salt Lake City launched a San Juan Expedition in 1879 that brought settlers eastward across Utah to Moab—the reverse of the movie’s westward journey.  The final clearing of the mountain path in the movie may be based on the 1879 effort to create the Hole in the Rock trail through Glen Canyon.

Many of these elements were probably in play as the fictional narrative was constructed.  As in most Ford movies, history is a very imaginative reconstruction:  It depicts Mormons who don’t act like Mormons following a route that no Mormons followed to reach a valley that never existed.  If you actually tried to follow the movie’s route, you’d probably end up like Travis, quietly sharing a concern with his partner:  “To tell you the truth Sandy, I’m lost.”

Google Maps suggests some walking routes
from Crystal, Colorado to Moab, Utah.

Come, Come, Ye Saints

"Come, Come, Ye Saints" swells on the
soundtrack as the Mormon pioneers
gaze on their Promised Land.

Heard at various points in the movie on Richard Hageman’s orchestral score, the Mormon pioneers finally get to sing their famous anthem “Come, Come, Ye Saints” at the end as they gaze across the river at their Promised Land.  In his memoir Company of Heroes, Harry Carey, Jr. recalled how Ford told him that he would have to learn the hymn for his leading role in the movie.  Then, one day on location, surrounded by Mormon extras from the surrounding area, Ford announced to the team:  “This young man here with the red hair is Harry Carey, Jr.  He’s one of the leads in the picture, but the important thing is, he knows the Mormon Hymn.  So he’s now going to show you how it goes.”  Then he lowered his voice and said to Carey, “Go ahead, kid, sing the hell out of it.”

After Carey finished doing the best job possible under the circumstances, Ford addressed the crowd again:  “My goodness, I can’t believe it.  A young man from Hollywood has to come all the way up here to teach the Mormon people how to sing ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints.’  That’s amazing—just amazing.”

Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell -
All is well! All is well!

"All is well!"  The happy ending at the end of the trail.

Special thanks to Paula Vitaris who manages the Ben Johnson Fan Page for generously sharing screen captures and providing valuable background information and insight! 

Reference Sources

Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford by Scott Eyman

About John Ford by Lindsay Anderson

John Ford: The Man and His Films by Ted Gallagher

The Nicest Fella: The Life of Ben Johnson by Richard D. Jensen

Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company by Harry Carey Jr.

Lest We Forget: The John Ford Stock Company by Bill Levy

Music in the Western: Notes from the Frontier, edited by Kathryn Kalinak (essay “John Ford, Walt Disney, and Sons of the Pioneers” by Ross Care)

When Hollywood Came to Town:  A History of Movie Making in Utah by James D’Arc

Wagon Master Warner Home Video DVD commentary by Harry Carey Jr. and Peter Bogdanovich

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© 2014 Lee Price