Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.
Direction
Ford at his most intimate—Monument Valley as character.
Cinematography
Those wagon wheel silhouettes? Pure visual music.
Score
Mormon hymns and folk songs, diegetic and gorgeous.
Director
John Ford
Ben Johnson
Travis Blue
Joanne Dru
Denver
Harry Carey, Jr.
Sandy
Ward Bond
Elder Wiggs
Charles Kemper
Uncle Shiloh Clegg
Alan Mowbray
Dr. A. Locksley Hall
Jane Darwell
Sister Ledyard
Ruth Clifford
Fleuretty Phyffe
Russell Simpson
Adam Perkins
James Arness
Floyd Clegg
Francis Ford
Mr. Peachtree
Fred Libby
Reese Clegg
Jim Thorpe
Navajo Indian
Mickey Simpson
Jesse Clegg
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ford financed this himself when Republic balked at a Western without Wayne. It became his personal favorite of his own films.
The sympathetic Mormon portrayal was radical for 1950 Hollywood; Ford had researched the 1879 San Juan expedition personally. The medicine show subplot? Pure vaudeville nostalgia from Ford's own youth.
US
