The Virginian (1929)

Director:

Victor Fleming

Writers:

Howard Estabrook (writer)
Grover Jones (adaptation)

Release Date:

9 November 1929 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Like An All Talking "Covered Wagon"!

Plot:

A good-natured cowboy who is romancing the new schoolmarm has a crisis of conscience when discovers his best friend is engaged in cattle rustling.

Plot Keywords:

Virginian | Cowboy | Shootout | Lynching | Poker

Cast

Gary Cooper	...	The Virginian (foreman of Box H Ranch)
Walter Huston	...	Trampas
Richard Arlen	...	Steven 'Steve'
Mary Brian	...	Molly Stark Wood (schoolteacher)
Helen Ware	...	Mrs. 'Ma' Taylor
Chester Conklin	...	Uncle 'Pa' Hughey
Eugene Pallette	...	'Honey' Wiggin
Victor Potel	...	Nebrasky (Box H hand)
E.H. Calvert	...	Judge Henry (Box H owner)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric System)

Certification:

USA:Approved

Filming Locations:

Lone Pine, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Future western movie icon Randolph Scott, from Virginia, was hired as a dialect coach to teach Gary Cooper a Virginia accent, and also has a small non-speaking part in the film.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: Although the story spans the late 1870's through the early 1880's, Molly refers to her grandfather being killed in the Cherry Valley Massacre. As that took place in 1778, at least 100 years earlier, that seems highly unlikely.

Quotes:

Trampas: This world isn't big enough for the both of us!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Cactus Kid (1930)

Soundtrack:

Three Blind Mice

Dedicated To His Friend Theodore Roosevelt

Although I particularly like the 1946 version of this classic western story with Joel McCrea, this 1929 version of The Virginian has a lot to recommend it, not the least of which is Gary Cooper in the title role.

From the first silent version of the story that Cecil B. DeMille directed until a 2000 made for television film that starred Bill Pullman as the cowboy who's only known by the state he originally hails from, this is the story that set the standard for the western novel that has come down to this day. Owen Wister (1860-1938) was a classmate and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt and when the book came out in 1902 it was dedicated to the new president who was in his second term of office.

Both Wister and Roosevelt were easterners who had gone west at critical portions of their lives and made careful note of the mores and customs of the people living there. Roosevelt went to the Dakota territory and Wister was in the new state of Wyoming just in time to view the famous Johnson County range war. It certainly was a period where certain folks did make up their own version of the law out in Wyoming and in this Wyoming setting of The Virginian as law and order was usually days if not weeks away, lynching lawbreakers was an accepted if not honored practice.

And that's what happens in The Virginian as Gary Cooper catches old friend Steve played by Richard Arlen rustling cattle of the Box H ranch where he is foreman. It's unfortunate that he did not catch gang leader Trampas played by Walter Huston, but the incident sets the scene for the inevitable western showdown.

There was western literature before The Virginian, popularized by writers like Ned Buntline. They were called 'penny dreadfuls' as a commentary of their cost and worth. Usually they took real western characters and made up these fantastic unreal stories about them. Real western historians in fact are still trying to separate truth from myth about all these people because of these stories.

Wister was a careful chronicler of what he saw and what he saw set the standard for later writers like Zane Grey, Louis L'Amour, Luke Short, etc. All the western clichés we've grown to expect in films got their start right here.

The Virginian set the standard in literature and film for a whole genre of entertainment. Any version of the story should not be missed.