Westward the Women (1951): A Classic Western Adventure That Redefines the Genre

It is 1850. 140 women are bound from Independence, Missouri, for a West Coast valley ranch where 100 bachelor cowboys await them.

Rancher Roy Whitman (John McIntire) recruited the women in Chicago with promises of husbands and land at the end of the 2,000-mile trail.

He selected a large number because he reckons at least a third of the petticoat pioneers would die on the trail. To ensure that the majority reach their destination, Roy hires no-nonsense frontier scout and wagon master Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor) to get as many women through as possible.

The trail is fraught with perils, and human passions boil to trouble. The male drivers desert, and Buck – who is cold to everything about the proposition except the money he is being paid for conducting it – shows the women how to drive the mules and shoot the guns to protect themselves against Indians.

Everything imaginable happens to the train, from floods, drownings and stampedes to dust storms, Indian killings and childbirth. Whitman is killed, and Buck stops just short of putting the women between the shafts of their wagons in his efforts to get them through.

Aside from the magnificent sweep of scenery which flows across the screen, dwarfing the covered wagons and the puny humans who pit themselves against incredible difficulties, there are some very sharp comments on human nature in general, often as not in half-pantomime, which is very effective.

Hope Emerson is Patience Hawley – the hard-bitten mainstay of the women; Renata Vanni is the widow Mrs Moroni, who loses her nine-year-old son, Tony, on the trip; Henry Nakamura does well as a shrewd little character called Ito, who cooks for the group and corrects boss Wyatt in perplexing situations; and Denise Darcel plays Fifi Danon, a showgirl with a dubious past, who carries on a romance with Buck.