Across the Wide Missouri (1951)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

William A. Wellman

Writers:

Talbot Jennings (screenplay)
Talbot Jennings (story) ...

Release Date:

23 October 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Western

Plot:

In the 1830's beaver trapper Flint Mitchell and other white men hunt and trap in the then unnamed territories of Montana and Idaho...

Plot Keywords:

Beaver | Trapper | 1830s | Native American | Arrow In Back

Cast

Clark Gable	...	Flint Mitchell
Ricardo Montalban	...	Ironshirt (Blackfoot war chief)
John Hodiak	...	Brecan
Adolphe Menjou	...	Pierre (French trapper)
J. Carrol Naish	...	Looking Glass (Nez Perce chief)
Jack Holt	...	Bear Ghost (Blackfoot medicine man)
Alan Napier	...	Capt. Humberstone Lyon
George Chandler	...	Gowie (Capt. Lyon's assistant)
Richard Anderson	...	Dick
María Elena Marqués	...	Kamiah (Blackfoot princess [Mitchell's wife])

Runtime:

78 min | Argentina:82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (certificate #14912)

Filming Locations:

Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, Durango, Colorado, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

When the original version of the finished film was submitted to MGM executives, they didn't like it. The film went through heavy editing, and a producer had the idea of tying together the surviving pieces by adding voice-over narration from Mitchell's grown up son, as if he is telling his father's life story. Howard Keel, who had just finished making Show Boat (1951), was brought in for this purpose. The changes led to director William A. Wellman effectively disowning the film. When asked about it in an interview, he said "I've not seen it, and I never will."

Goofs:

Continuity: When the horse with Gable’s son runs away. the child is originally on the right side of the horse. The succeeding shot shows him on the left side of the horse. Later shots show him back on the right side.

Quotes:

Narrator: My father told me that for the first time, he saw these Indians as he had never seen them before - as people with homes and traditions and ways of their own. Suddenly they were no longer savages. They were people who laughed and loved and dreamed.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)

Soundtrack:

Across The Wide Missouri

Respectable effort to portray the life of the mountain man in the opening of the West.

This film does a good job of portraying the story of the mountain men who trapped beaver in the Rocky Mountains and played a significant role in winning the West. Clark Gable is the star of this film. He plays a trapper who falls in love with a Blackfoot maiden (Maria Elena Marquez). He buys her from a Nez Perce chief hoping to use her to get into the good graces of her grandfather, a Blackfoot leader. Ultimately, he falls in love with her.

The romance between Gable and Marquez is the real story of this film. It is much more believable than the relationship between James Stewart and Debra Paget in "Broken Arrow". In the first place, the two of them can't talk to each other. Gable needs an interpreter to talk to his wife. The relationship compares to the forced marriage between Robert Redford and a Flathead girl in "Jeremiah Johnson". Gable's affection for his Blackfoot wife is obvious throughout the film.

The film paints a much kinder picture of Native American life than many Westerns. Like Dewey Martin's character in "The Big Sky" Gable returns in the end to the Blackfeet. He has learned to value Indian life and wants to raise his son with her mother's people.

The film portrays the real life capture of fur trapper John Colter by the Blackfeet. Captured by a young chief named Iron Shirt Gable must run for his life. The film should have taken more time with this exciting scene. It is far too short and not nearly as exciting as it should have been. I enjoyed Henry Fonda's run for his life in "Drums Along the Mohawk", but it was very poorly done here. Colter's successful escape from his Blackfeet captors deserves a better rendering.

This film is worth watching for the beautiful high mountain scenery and the romance between Gable and Marques. The soundtrack is not particularly original, giving us constant variation on the old standard "Shenandoah", but it is pleasant listening. Enjoy it.