Westward the Women (1951): An Exceptional Classical Hollywood Western

William A. Wellman's MGM Western deserves higher praise among classic films.

The idea for MGM’s Westward the Women (1951) came from the great Frank Capra. He was reading a magazine article about a group of South American women who traveled a long and dangerous trip to become brides for a group of male colonists. Thinking this story would make a great Western, he told his buddy, also a great film director as I’ve said before, William A. Wellman about it. Capra let Wellman take it on, and back when studios cared about making good films, MGM was enthused by the prospect of a grand Western. The result is one of the best Westerns of the classical era and one that should be brought up in conversations about popular classic films. I’m not sure how it got buried through the years, but having it available only on physical media doesn’t help (I watched it on TCM).

The premise of Westward the Women can seem off putting, but don’t let that deter you. Roy Whitman (John McIntire), proud landowner of Whitman Valley in California, promises his settlement of men to bring women over from the East. They’re lonely and they need wives. This premise is instantly negated once one sees how the film more than stands the test of time. He hires the experienced frontiersman Buck Wyatt (an irritated and rugged Robert Taylor) to join him on a trek to Chicago to recruit a large group of women and lead them back West on the wagon trail. The women they find in Chicago are more than up to the task. They find ladies that can ride horses, handle mules, drive wagons, and some are redolent of Annie Oakley with their sharpshooting skills. These few will teach the rest - 140 women in total when they start off. It’s revealing that there are few women who already know some things, the film makes it clear that the women who need to learn aren’t learning strictly because they’re women, but because they simply just don’t know. Whether it’s because they’re a woman or not doesn’t matter. 

The main players are Patience (Hope Emerson), a gregarious widow who takes charge; Rose (Beverly Dennis), a teacher who is either pregnant before the journey or becomes pregnant - falling in love with one of the male hired hands Sid Cutler (Pat Conway) - during the journey, it’s intentionally ambiguous due to the Hays Code and it’s not clear how much time passes while they’re traveling (there’s no doubt the duration of such an arduous trip would last a pregnancy term or longer); Mrs. Moroni (Renata Vanni) an Italian immigrant, her son Tony, and his adorable dog Pauli; Maggie O’Malley (Lenore Lonergan), a gungslinger made for the West; and finally, two showgirls who finesse their way into the caravan by changing out of their fancy clothes, the French Fifi Danon (a stunning Denise Darcel) and her close friend Laurie Smith (Julie Bishop). Roy, standing by a board of small portraits of each man in California, tells them to choose a man (reality show concepts were apparently invented long before they were actually put on television) while Fifi stands by and admires Buck, who, disapproving of women and their cooking for some inexplicable reason, looks chagrined to be taking on this job. But he’s getting paid extra money and plans to see it through.

Before they saddle up and wagon up (“Take ‘em to my valley,” Roy says, echoing John Wayne’s “Take ‘em to Missouri” from Howard Hawks’s Red River; Westward the Women should be just as highly regarded as that classic), Buck finds a group of fifteen men to help out, one of which is the friendly and brave Ito (Henry Nakamura, from internment camp in California during WWII to the Navy to Hollywood stardom), a Japanese immigrant. This being Old Hollywood, all the unfortunate stereotypes are there, but what’s lacking is a condescension usually given to non-white characters. With Wellman’s humanist touch, there’s a sympathy for Ito that matches all the rest of the characters. There’s even more so for the women, since this is all about them. 

This isn’t the classical Hollywood women’s picture we usually think of - a melodramatic, swooning romance intended for women audiences. No, this is a women’s picture. While there is a male lead (unlike George Cukor’s lovely 1939 film The Women, which has not one man in it), the women run the show, enduring the wagon troubles, Indian attacks, and the lascivious men whom Buck has forbidden to interact with the women. A pipe dream, obviously, to expect all of these virile, nineteenth-century men to abide by these rules, especially those who think they are entitled to certain vices out on the harsh terrain where survival is uncertain. Buck’s not messing around though. “This kind of fun will rip a train wide open,” he admonishes. “I’ve seen it happen. On most trains, the law against fondling is thirty lashes. On my train, it’s a bullet.” He says this to the first man who tries to have his way with one of the women but he spares the man a slug and instead sends him on his way back East.

One of the highlights of the film is Ito and Buck’s relationship. Ito rides by his side the whole way and every time Ito speaks Japanese Buck asks him in the same tone of voice, “What’d you say?” Another running gag between them throughout the film, in which the payoff is sort of underwhelming and one I should have predicted, is about a man named Jim Quackenbush. Buck asks Ito to look for him while they travel and even though Jim Quackenbush is dead, Buck says they’ve “been pals for years, inseparable pals” and that he can’t live without him. Ito wonders if his boss is alright in the head. Ito looks for Jim Quackenbush everywhere they go to no avail and Buck insists that he keep on trying.

Meanwhile, Buck and Fifi Danon, who he just calls “Danon” out of insolence for her and her background, are always arguing and heckling each other. In other words, they’re falling in love. Buck sticks to his own rule, however, even when Danon approaches him while he’s sitting against a tree. She stands over him, seductively straddling his leg sticking out while claiming how interesting her past is, wink-wink. Buck denies her but it’s a scene that further lays out the film’s intentions to subvert both the genre and its time; a classical Hollywood Western where women have agency and go after what they want while the men who try to get what they want are punished and rightly so. And soon enough, another man attempts to rape Laurie and is successful, he couldn’t be more obvious about it walking back to the campfire. His defense (not that anyone can defend rape)? “Nothing’s happened to her that didn’t happen before. I just roughed her up a little. Told her not to make a fuss and she wouldn’t listen.” This scene is quite fascinating when looking closer. Buck pulls his gun from his holster, points his gun and says, “Remember what I told you I was going to do.” The man replies, “You’re going to give me a chance to draw, aren’t you?” Now, as he says this, his hand goes to his gun but not that quickly and he never gets a full grip nor even manages to inch it out of his holster one bit. In other Westerns of this time, I’ve noticed that those who lose draws still manage to unholster their revolver, maybe even get a shot off as they dramatically clutch their wound. The man never stood a chance anyway and Buck doesn’t hesitate to shoot him. This is purely speculation on my part and probably not true at all, but this seems to be another instance of Wellman evading the Code. There wasn’t necessarily anything in the Production Code about shooting a man in cold blood and, in fact, it was stipulated that characters who did terrible things be punished (always more lenient on men of course; women, no matter the sin, usually died). But it seems reasonable to suspect that the so-called rules of the West would matter to the Code - thus, a fair draw between men. So I would like to believe Wellman wanted Buck to kill the man in cold blood, but he had to make it, just barely, look like a fair draw to appease the censors.. Ironically, after Buck kills the man and starts to walk away, another man standing by the campfire pulls out his gun aiming to shoot Buck in the back but Maggie draws her pistol and shoots him, saving Buck. Buck thanks her and she nods, blows the smoke from the chamber and spins it back into her holster.

Fifi Danon (Denise Darcel) and Laurie Smith (Julie Bishop) prove they can handle the trail.

With two men dead and one forced to leave, the other men start to question the whole outfit. Sid and another man hatch plans to run away. Sid tries to convince Rose but it’s here where Rose reveals that she’s pregnant and Sid already knows (so whether he is the father or another man before him is, again, up to us to decide - so yes, Sid is definitely the father). Rose convinces Sid to stay instead and the man wishes them good luck dealing with that “crazy” Buck. Turns out the rest of the men had the same plan; when Buck, Roy, Ito, and Sid wake up the next morning, all the men are gone and eight women with them. Buck convinces Roy they should keep going. He announces to the women how hard it’s going to be, they’ll have to do all the work themselves and they’ll be roughed up a bit. They joined the harrowing journey in the first place, why wouldn’t they be up to this challenge? Now with just four men and over 100 women, they carry on.

Things do get tougher. With the men gone, Buck has more women trained in shooting firearms. Maggie and the men, even little Tony, show the women how to shoot. Suddenly, there’s a death that’s still quite shocking today. With the camera on Buck training Danon, Mrs. Moroni screams offscreen and a whip-pan to where Tony was standing with a group of women, but now he’s on the ground. The details of the accident are never clear but Tony is shot somehow and Mrs. Moroni wailing over her dead son is a mighty tearjerker to behold. When they bury him and move on, Ito takes the dog Pauli with him but Pauli goes back to Tony’s grave. Ito, with a bone in hand, goes after him and has a touching scene with the grieving dog laying on Tony’s grave. “I like you very much,” he says to the dog. “I’ll never be as good a boss to you as the little boy. But I’ll try so hard, please Pauli. Come with me.” It’s a great showcase for Nakamura and such a sweet scene that, unfortunately, never really gets its due payoff. There’s one more shot of the dog throughout the rest of the movie and is never even seen with Ito again when they make it to the valley in California. Disappointing.

After this, the women work hard to get their wagons down a canyon slope and one of them dies in the effort. Women brawl with each other, Patience is losing patience, horses are spooked away, and the desert heat is unbearable. Soon enough, the expected Indian attack occurs, though it's off screen as we follow Buck chasing down Danon after their biggest spat yet. Their pent-up sexual frustration finally spills out and when Buck catches her, they have a passionate smooch. When they get back to the camp, they find wagons on fire, Roy mortally injured, Sid and numerous other women dead, arrows jutting out of their bodies. Roy advises Buck to finish the job before he passes. Buck says they should go back now but the women demand to keep going and Buck is officially impressed. Robert Taylor nails this role, letting his tough, careless attitude for the women waste away into a soft sensitivity and admiration. It’s no longer just a job, it’s pivotal that these good, no-nonsense, hardworking women get to California for a good life. He roll calls for the slain and women yell out the names of the dead, their voices echoing in the canyon. It’s a powerful and unique scene that a lesser film would’ve thrown some swelling music over (the film lacks non-diagetic music entirely and very effectively). Hearing the names of the dead echo back to them is a haunting reminder of what they’ve been through.

Later on, Ito finally finds Jim Quackenbush’s grave during a thunderstorm. He and Buck dig out two large bottles of rum and get drunk as they wait out the storm. They’re unaware of a flood of running water by Danon and Laurie’s wagon. The water takes it, Danon manages to get out but Laurie drowns. A few days later, Rose has her baby in a wagon that loses a wheel. The women prop it up as Patience helps her deliver the baby boy. It’s a tender scene with the women coming together, the story and triumph belongs to them. Mrs. Maroni, persevering through her grief, holds the baby for a bit and sings to him a happy Italian tune.

Finally, Buck rides ahead and sees the promised valley. The women see a mud pond and bathe in it. When Buck tries to lead them into the ranch town, they refuse and insist that he go first and grab some ladylike clothes for the rugged, filthy, and beaten-down group. Buck rides into the town and orders the eager men to behave before grabbing some clothing and anything that looks like what a woman would wear. The men dress in their Sunday best as well as they greet the women now dolled up in makeup (somehow) and dresses. Patience, as the women get out their pictures of the men, tells them that they will be doing the choosing. She goes first, just like she did in Chicago when they were told to choose a picture. The women follow, some violin folk music begins to play, and they dance. A preacher starts a line for couples to marry. Rose finds a stepfather for her baby. Mrs. Maroni’s chosen man also happens to be Italian! Danon stands back and waits for Buck. But Ito approaches her and says, “You cross over fifteen-hundred miles, you can’t cross fifteen feet?” She goes to Buck. They, too, queue themselves up to get married. 

Westward the Women is a beautiful picture, another masterwork from Wellman, a director who started in the silent era and here in 1951 still humanizing his characters, following them with compassion and empathy that his camera instills into the audience. The film, while still obviously dated, has aged well. What hasn’t aged well is Bosley Crowther’s assessment of the film at the time in the New York Times: “…William Wellman, who directed, hasn't got much authority from his cast, but he has got several humorous moments from them, and that's the best to be expected from this film.” When Crowther missed, he missed badly. Westward the Women is a prime projection that belongs in the upper echelons of not only classic Hollywood Westerns, but classic Hollywood films in general.