Main Cast: Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Sonny Tufts, Barbara Britton, Fay Bainter
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
Owen Wister's 1902 novel was made into a movie several times, most notably in 1929, with Gary Cooper starring. This 1946 remake of the often-filmed saga gave Joel McCrea the title role as the standing-tall cowboy in Wyoming. The Virginian and his best friend Steve (Sonny Tufts) are rivals for the affections of Molly Wood (Barbara Britton), a schoolteacher who has migrated from the East and finds herself intimidated by the rough morality of the West. Steve is after a quick buck and hooks up with a nefarious cattle rustler, Trampas (Brian Donlevy). The Virginian warns his friend not to take up the life of crime, but to no avail. Much gunplay ensues. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
They are on a collision course from the outset, Owen Wister's iconic characters of the Virginian (Joel McCrea), his best friend, Steve (Sonny Tufts), and Trampas, the cattle rustler (Brian Donlevy). Wister's original play had premiered on Broadway in 1904, starring Dustin Farnum in the title role, which he repeated for the cameras in the 1914 Cecil B. DeMille screen version. Paramount resurrected the tale of friendship and betrayal for the new talkie medium in 1929, allowing Gary Cooper first dibs at the immortal line "When you call me that -- smile." Technicolor added beauty and drama to both in the 1946 version's Placerita Canyon locations and Barbara Britton's prim yet glamorous schoolmarm, and McCrea and Donlevy were of course born to play the two adversaries, who were really mirror images of each other but whom destiny had placed on opposite side of frontier laws. Yet the color is almost too pretty at times, the indoor-for-outdoor sets too prevalent (a common objection to grade-A Westerns of the 1940s), and Sonny Tufts doesn't exactly strike a modern viewer as the star-crossed type. Combined, these flaws do not make the climactic hanging-of-his-best-friend scene the powerful statement it should have been, and the final confrontation in the streets of Medicine Bow is handled with too little imagination and falls a bit flat. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Hans Dreier - Art Director, John Meehan - Art Director, Edith Head - Costume Designer, Stuart Gilmore - Director, Everett Douglas - Editor, Daniele Amfitheatrof - Composer (Music Score), Harry Hallenberger - Cinematographer, Paul Jones - Producer, John MacNeil - Set Designer, Gordon Jennings - Special Effects, Howard Estabrook - Screenwriter, Frances Goodrich - Screenwriter, Albert Hackett - Screenwriter, Edward E. Paramore, Jr. - Screenwriter, Walter Hallenberger - Play Author, Owen Wister - Play Author, Kirk LaShelle - Play Author
