The Covered Wagon | |
---|---|
Directed by | James Cruze |
Written by | Jack Cunningham (adaptation) |
Based on | The Covered Wagon by Emerson Hough |
Produced by | Jesse L. Lasky |
Starring | J. Warren Kerrigan Lois Wilson |
Cinematography | Karl Brown |
Edited by | Dorothy Arzner |
Music by | Josiah Zuro Hugo Riesenfeld |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent English intertitles |
Budget | $782,000 or $336,000 [1] |
Box office | $4 million (U.S. and Canada rentals) [2] |
The Covered Wagon is a 1923 American silent epic Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a 1922 novel of the same name by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers traveling through the old West from Kansas to Oregon. J. Warren Kerrigan starred as Will Banion and Lois Wilson as Molly Wingate. On their quest they experience desert heat, mountain snow, hunger, and Indian attack. [3]
The Covered Wagon is one of many films from 1923 that entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2019. [4]
The action is set in 1848. Two caravans of expatriates unite in Kansas and travel 2,000 miles west to start a new life in Oregon. The leader of the settlers is the elderly father and natural authority, Wingate. Scouts are the headstrong Sam Woodhull and the kind-hearted, talented Will Banion. Banion has a secret around a crime he is said to have committed in the army.
Along the way, the pioneers suffer a number of hardships such as hunger and bad weather. In addition, Sam Woodhull embroil the settlers in clashes with Indians, and later aroused "gold fever" in some of the pilgrims when news of gold discoveries In California reach the settlers. A dispute ensues, and many families leave the caravan to go to California.
Time and again Sam Woodhull causes problems. He gets involved with Will Banion in a power struggle for the leadership of the wagon train, and also for the favors of the young Molly Wingate. Fortunately, Banion is succored by his old friend William Jackson, but in the end he also leaves the train shortly before reaching Oregon to seek his fortune in California, as Molly's father forbids a connection with his daughter. Unlike many of the Forty-Niners who sought riches in the Golden State, Banion is successful and strikes it rich.
Woodhull, spurned by Molly because she loves Banion, wants to get rid of him in California. He plans to shoot Banion from ambush. Fortunately, Jackson watches the scene and in turn shoots Woodhull dead. With Jackson's news that Molly is expecting him in Oregon, Will Banion and his wealth head for Oregon, where he can finally take Molly into his arms.
Cast notes
The film was a major production for its time, with an estimate budget of $782,000. [7]
In his 1983 book Classics of the Silent Cinema, radio and TV host Joe Franklin claimed this film was "the first American epic not directed by Griffith". [5]
In the 1980 documentary Hollywood: A Celebration of American Silent Cinema , Jesse L. Lasky Jr. maintained that the goal of director James Cruze was " ... to elevate the Western, which had always been sort of a potboiler kind of film, to the status of an epic". [8]
The film required a large cast and film crew and many extras, [9] and was filmed in various locations, including Palm Springs, California [10] : 168–71 and several places in Nevada and Utah. [11] The dramatic buffalo hunt and buffalo stampede scenes were filmed on Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Utah. During filming for the movie, seven bison from the Antelope Island Bison Herd were shot and killed.[ citation needed ]
The covered wagons gathered by Paramount from all over the Southwest were not replicas, but the real wagons that had brought the pioneers west. They were cherished heirlooms of the families who owned them. The producers offered the owners $2 a day (equal to $35.77 today) and feed for their stock if they would bring the wagons for the movie. Most of the extras seen on film are the families who owned the covered wagons and were perfectly at home driving them and living out of them during the production. [12]
The film premiered in New York City on March 16, 1923, and ran 98 minutes. A musical soundtrack was recorded in the short-lived DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, but sources vary on whether this record soundtrack was of the entire score or about two reels worth of the film. The Phonofilm version of the film was only shown this way at the premiere at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. [13] Paramount reportedly also released Bella Donna on April 1, 1923, with a Phonofilm soundtrack, also only at the premiere at the Rivoli.
The film was the second highest-grossing film of 1923. This was also President Warren G. Harding's favorite film as he showed it at a special screening at the White House during the summer of 1923.
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
Betty Compson was an American actress and film producer who got her start during Hollywood's silent era. She is best known for her performances in The Docks of New York and The Barker, the latter of which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
This is an overview of 1923 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. Before the extensive use of military vehicles, baggage trains followed an army with supplies and ammunition.
Kevin Brownlow is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. He received an Academy Honorary Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 13 November 2010. This was the first occasion on which an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist.
Lois Wilson was an American actress who worked during the silent film era. She also directed two short films and was a scenario writer.
James Cruze was a silent film actor and film director.
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Hugo Riesenfeld was an Austrian-American composer. As a film director, he began to write his own orchestral compositions for silent films in 1917, and co-created modern production techniques where film scoring serves an integral part of the action. Riesenfeld composed about 100 film scores in his career.
George Guy Oliver was an American actor. He appeared in at least 189 silent film era motion pictures and 32 talkies in character roles between 1911 and 1931. His obituary gives him credit for at least 600. He directed three films in 1915.
Hollywood is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by James Cruze, co-written by Frank Condon and Thomas J. Geraghty, and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is a lengthier feature follow-up to Paramount's own short film exposé of itself, A Trip to Paramountown from 1922.
Ten Gentlemen from West Point is a 1942 American Western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring George Montgomery, Maureen O'Hara and John Sutton. Its cinematography was nominated for an Academy Award in 1943. George Montgomery replaced John Payne who was suffering an emotional upset at the time. The story tell a fictional story of the first class of the United States Military Academy in the early 1800s.
The Pony Express is a 1925 American silent Western film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze and starred his wife, Betty Compson, along with Ricardo Cortez, Wallace Beery, and George Bancroft. Prints of this film survive, and it has been released on DVD.
Karl Brown was an American cinematographer, screenwriter, and film director. He was also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers and served as vice president from 1924 to 1925.
Sutter's Gold is a 1936 American Western film. It is a fictionalized version of the aftermath of the discovery of gold on Sutter's property, spurring the California Gold Rush of 1849. Edward Arnold plays John Sutter. The supporting cast includes Lee Tracy, Binnie Barnes, Katherine Alexander, Montagu Love, and Harry Carey as Kit Carson. The film was directed by James Cruze.
Bella Donna is a 1923 American silent film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on the 1909 novel, Bella Donna, by Robert Smythe Hichens which was later adapted for a 1912 Broadway play starring Alla Nazimova. This film is also a remake of the 1915 Paramount film Bella Donna starring Pauline Frederick. The 1923 film was directed by George Fitzmaurice and starred Pola Negri in her first American film.
A Man's Man is a lost 1917 American silent adventure film directed by Oscar Apfel and produced by Paralta Plays. It starred J. Warren Kerrigan and Lois Wilson, the pair famous for appearing in The Covered Wagon.
The Source is a lost 1918 American drama silent film directed by George Melford and written by Monte M. Katterjohn and Clarence Budington Kelland. The film stars Wallace Reid, Ann Little, Theodore Roberts, Raymond Hatton, James Cruze, Noah Beery, Sr. and Nina Byron. The film was released on September 8, 1918, by Paramount Pictures.
Ruggles of Red Gap is a 1923 American silent Western film directed by James Cruze and written by Anthony Coldeway and Walter Woods that was adapted from the novel by Harry Leon Wilson. The film stars Edward Everett Horton, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson, Fritzi Ridgeway, Charles Stanton Ogle, Louise Dresser, Anna Lehr, and William Austin. The film was released on October 7, 1923, by Paramount Pictures.
The Girl of the Golden West is a 1923 American silent Western film directed and produced by Edwin Carewe and starring Sylvia Breamer, J. Warren Kerrigan, and Russell Simpson. It was distributed through Associated First National Pictures. It is based on the 1905 David Belasco play The Girl of the Golden West.
1883 is an American Western drama miniseries created by Taylor Sheridan that premiered on December 19, 2021, on Paramount+. The series stars Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott, Isabel May, LaMonica Garrett, Marc Rissmann, Audie Rick, Eric Nelsen, and James Landry Hébert. The story is chronologically the first of several prequels to Sheridan's Yellowstone and details how the Duttons came to own the land that became the Yellowstone Ranch.