Wagon Master

Wagon Master is a 1950 Western film directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, and Ward Bond. Learning of their ability as experienced horsemen, Mormon Elder Wiggs (Bond), hires Travis Blue (Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Carey) to guide a small group of Mormons across the West to the San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory, in 1849. Ford formulated the story, and then Patrick Ford (John Ford's son) and ... more

Wagon Master is a 1950 Western film directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, and Ward Bond. Learning of their ability as experienced horsemen, Mormon Elder Wiggs (Bond), hires Travis Blue (Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Carey) to guide a small group of Mormons across the West to the San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory, in 1849. Ford formulated the story, and then Patrick Ford (John Ford's son) and Frank S. Nugent wrote the script. Ford and Merian C. Cooper (with Ford and Cooper's Argosy Pictures as production company) were co-executive producers, with Lowell J. Farrell as associate producer. Music was done by Richard Hageman, and the picture was distributed by RKO Pictures. Ford had been shooting the film She Wore a Yellow Ribbon the year before (1948) in Monument Valley, near the town of Mexican Hat, Utah, close to the locations where he had also filmed Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), and Fort Apache (1948). He wanted... less