Westward the Women

Two weeks ago, I happened upon Westward the Women, a movie I hadn’t seen since I was about eight years old. I grew up a fan of the Western genre, and back then there were plenty of Westerns being filmed to keep my fire lit. At the age of five, according to my mother, my boyfriend was Roy Rogers. One day she saw me making mud pies and asked who the pies were for. “Roy,” I answered. A year later I carried my lunch to school in a Roy Rogers lunch pail.

Many western-themed movies in the 50’s and 60’s treated America’s westward expansion lightly and tritely. There was always singing and dancing around a campfire and an attack by indigenous people which the natives usually lost. Westerns featured male actors more than they did female, and actresses along for the ride usually had well-coiffed hair and pretty dresses that were clean and unwrinkled.

Westward the Women was an exception. This movie about a wagon train of mail order brides traveling to California was filmed in black and white, one way to highlight how dirty and treacherous such trips were. It has since been colorized, but for me, blue skies and blue eyes are a distraction. These women got muddy, sweaty, sunburned, broken and bloodied. Their hair was usually a mess, and their dresses looked like rags by the time they reached California. The stark realism in the black and white version I saw as a child may be why this movie made such an impression it stuck with me most of my life.

Movies filmed years later such as Meeks Cutoff (2010) also show how strong women had to be to make the endless trek across deserts and mountains. I have seen two episodes of 1883 since it was released this year, and thus far it appears to have even more realistic roles for women than Meeks Cutoff or Westward the Women.

Another accurate depiction of women pioneers can be seen at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center located in Baker City, Oregon. In the museum’s living history displays, the hems of the women’s dresses are caked with dirt as they walk alongside, not ride in covered wagons. Painstaking details, such as the fatigue etched on mannikin pioneer faces and artificial flies perched on artificial oxen dung, make this replica of the true Oregon Trail experience worth a trip to Baker City.

Good-bye Larry McMurtry

No doubt those coyotes you heard howling toward the end of March were lamenting the death of Larry McMurtry. I came close to howling with them on March 26 when I learned the Texas writer had passed the day before. I have watched the mini-series “Lonesome Dove” too many times to count, and being a lover of the Western genre, I watch every episode with profound respect for McMurtry’s realistic, heart-rending grasp of the “old West” and the people who tamed it.

Over his lifetime, his love of the wild West coupled with painstaking research resulted in close to three dozen novels, over 20 screenplays, and numerous nonfiction memoirs and essays. I was especially delighted when he adapted a short story written by Annie Proulx, another of my favorite authors, into the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. Annie’s story won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1998, and the film adaptation was a “best picture” finalist at the 78^th Annual Academy Awards. What a dynamite combination!

Several of McMurtry’s engaging novels, and not always Westerns, were adopted by filmmakers. Besides his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove which became an Emmy-winning TV series, films based on The Last Picture Show and Terms of Endearment were box office triumphs. Last Picture Show was a finalist for the “best picture” Oscar in 1971.

I will dearly miss the prolific writer as I do the passing of all of my favorite authors. Lately, March seems to be particularly hard on them. Larry McMurtry died March 25, 2021; Pat Conroy March 4, 2016. Annie, please be extra careful during March.  

Woman Walks Ahead

 

My husband and I are great movie fans. Our television is usually tuned to a movie channel all day. Not that we sit and watch movies all day, but I do stop for a scene here and there, and the audio produces the background sound I need to drown out the constant ringing in my ears.

Since my husband prefers westerns and war movies, I end up watching a lot of films from those genres. Once in a while I come across a real gem as I did last week when I watched the western, Woman Walks Ahead.

This indie film released in 2017, although not historically accurate, is a beautiful portrayal of the emotional bond that developed between a New York widow who traveled to the Dakotas in the 1880’s to paint Sitting Bull's portrait, and the iconic Native American himself.

Filmed in New Mexico, the scenery is breathtaking. Jessica Chastain’s acting is superb, and the portrayal of Sitting Bull as a humble, intelligent human being with a sense of humor is refreshing. Add history’s treatment of this man and his people that ended in the tragedy at Wounded Knee and you have a drama that was for me a real tear-jerker. I haven’t cried that hard for years.

I highly recommend this unheralded movie for its overwhelming hold on the eyes, the brain, and the heart.

My Favorite Westerns

According to Noelle Buffam, writing for The Script Lab, "Western Film is a genre that revolves around stories primarily set in the late 19th century in the American Old West. Most Westerns take place between the American Civil War (1865) and the early 1900s. Common themes within Western film include: the conquest of the wild West, the cultural separation of The East and the West, the West's resistance to modern change, the conflict between cowboys and Indians, outlaws, and treasure/gold hunting. American Western film usually revolves around a stoic hero and emphasizes the importance of honor and sacrifice."

I still enjoy a good Western, especially those with an unusual twist, compelling story, and top-notch actors. Once a dependable money-maker for movie studios, Westerns are now more often box office disappointments. The films that do succeed are not the rootin'-tootin', singing cowboy, unscrupulous landowner VS small rancher, cattle rustling variety that filled movie screens for decades.

 Below, in alphabetical order, are my all-time favorites.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): screenplay by William Goldman. Goldman won the Oscar that year for best original screenplay. Light-hearted, yet authentic.

Dances With Wolves (1990): adapted from a book by Michael Blake. This film won the Best Picture Oscar. What an amazing, beautifully adapted story!

Hostiles (2017): screenplay by Donald Stewart based on a story by Donald E. Stewart. Violent, yet true to what life was like for settlers and Native Americans when the West was still wild.

Legends of the Fall (1994): book by Jim Harrison. In my opinion, this film never received the recognition it should have.

Lonesome Dove (1985): Not a movie, but a TV miniseries adapted from a book written by the phenomenal Western writer, Larry McMurtry. I never get tired of watching both Lonesome Dove and its sequel, Return to Lonesome Dove.

The Magnificent Seven (1960): screenplay by William Roberts (a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film Seven Sumurai. I cry every time I watch it. I've never watched the remake, nor do I intend to. Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson are irreplaceable. 

The Unforgiven (1992): screenplay by David Webb Peoples. Another Western film that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Tough to watch, but excellent.

If you haven't watched one or more of these films, and you aren't a Western genre naysayer, I don't believe you will be disappointed.