The Far Horizons (1955)

United States has just acquired Louisiana from France. An expedition led by Lewis and Clark is sent to survey the territory and go where no white man has gone before. Are they able to ... See full summary »

Director:

Rudolph Maté

Writers:

Della Gould Emmons (novel), Winston Miller,

Stars:

Fred MacMurray, Charlton Heston, Donna Reed

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Fred MacMurray	...	Captain Meriwether Lewis
Charlton Heston	...	Lt. William Clark
Donna Reed	...	Sacajawea
Barbara Hale	...	Julia Hancock
William Demarest	...	Sgt. Gass
Alan Reed	...	Charboneau
Eduardo Noriega	...	Cameahwait
Larry Pennell	...	Wild Eagle
Argentina Brunetti	...	Old Crone
Julia Montoya	...	Crow woman
Ralph Moody	...	Le Borgne
Herbert Heyes	...	President Thomas Jefferson
Lester Matthews	...	Mr. Hancock
Helen Wallace	...	Mrs. Marsha Hancock
Walter Reed	...	Cruzatte (helmsman)

Storyline

United States has just acquired Louisiana from France. An expedition led by Lewis and Clark is sent to survey the territory and go where no white man has gone before. Are they able to overcome the dangers with the help of Sacajawea?

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Plot Keywords:

lewis and clark | thomas jefferson | canoe | missouri river | 1800s | 

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Genres:

History | Western

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 August 1955 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Blue Horizons

Filming Locations:

Grand Teton National Park, Moose, Wyoming, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pine-Thomas Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The lead roles were originally offered to Gary Cooper and John Wayne, but Cooper vehemently rejected the offer.

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Goofs

The romance between Clark and Sacajawea, and the Indian warrior's jealousy of Clark are fiction. Sacajawea was married to a French-Canadian fur trapper when she met Clark, and there no historical basis to suggest that her and Clark's relationship was anything other than professional. Needless to say, she did not accompany Clark back to Washington, as shown in the film.

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Connections

Featured in The Colgate Comedy Hour: Episode #5.31 (1955)

User Reviews

Lovely color, nice locations and a script written by someone who spent about 9 minutes researching for the film.

In 2011, "Time" magazine listed this as one of the 10 historically misleading films! As a retired American history teacher, it's pretty obvious what I think about the film!! Some of the ridiculously wrong portions of the film include a romance between Clark and Sacagawea (she was pregnant and married to Charbonneau in real life) as well as having the Donna Reed play this lady!! It's hilarious hearing her, with her perfect diction and Midwestern accent, playing a native. So how do they make her look like an Indian? LOTS of paint and a wig! I think Divine would have been about as convincing (and a lot more entertaining)!! Despite this romance NEVER occurring, it is the main focus of the film! And, despite the nasty natives in the film, for the most part, the tribes the expedition encountered were very peaceful.

If you can completely ignore the film's MANY inaccuracies, it is a very nice looking but dull film. The color is amazingly nice--and has that nice 1950s color scheme. It also has many lovely location shots and is HUGE in scope. And, if you ignore most of the details, the film did get the gist of the actual story! There were folks named Lewis and Clark and they did explore the western portion of the United States. As for the acting, it was generally good, but Fred MacMurray didn't seem to have a lot to do but scowl. Poor guy. And William Demarest sounded VERY peculiar--with an accent that came and went and seemed like it was part Irish, part Scottish and part....God knows! Heston and Reed were fine.

Note: Although the film is VERY pretty, sometimes the images are blurry. Apparently this is caused by differences in shrinkage rates of the color strips put together to make a full-color film. In other words, the red or blue layer might shrink at differing rates in portions of the film--giving a few scenes an odd look today.

Another Note: Films about this expedition neglect to mention that not too long after it was complete that Captain Lewis committed suicide! This dark event was apparently the result of his lifelong struggle with clinical depression. Pretty sad....