The Virginian (1946)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent but underrated film

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The fourth big-screen adaptation of author Owen Wister classic novel "The Virginian" stars Joel McCrea as the eponymous hero and Brian Donlevy as the villainous Trampas. McCrea looks a bit long in the tooth to be cast as the title character. Director Stuart Gilmore's "The Virginian" concerns a transplanted Easterner on horseback who serves as foreman at Judge Henry's ranch in Wyoming. Barbara Britton co-stars as 'a wisdom-bringer" from Vermont who gets off on the wrong foot with McCrea. This is a traditional western lensed beautifully but primarily against studio backdrops and Hollywood backlot towns is comparatively dull. This morality play draws its gravity from a superlative performance from Sonny Turfs as Steve Andrews, a never-do-well, cloven-hoofed cowboy who prefers to rustler rather than earn his living the legal way. Steve wanders back and forth from the wrong end of the trail to work briefly for The Virginian. Steve and the Virginian are close, old friends. Brian Donlevy is dressed from Stetson to boots in black and plays Trampas as a thorough-going bastard. He ambushes our hero after Steve and the other rustles are strung up by the neck. The romance between the hero and heroine is complicated somewhat because she doesn't like the Virginian standing up for her. Molly Stark Wood resents the fact that everybody in the cattle town of Medicine Bow has her attached to the Virginian. The finale between the Virginian and Trampas in the streets of Medicine Bow could hardly be termed suspenseful. A tame oater at best with a straight-up, honest McCrea, with the sympathetic but doomed Tufts taking top honors. The target practice that Trampas and Steve have in the bar is amusing. Trampas blasts three whiskey shot glasses out of the air. When Trampas slings one shot glass aloft, he fires at it and we hear the intact glass strike the floorboards. Barbara Britton makes a pretty heroine.

Molly Woods makes her way to Medicine Bow to become the new schoolmarm, after meeting two cowboys (and great friends) called Steve and The Virginian it becomes evident that both men are quite smitten with Molly. After a series of events surrounding Molly, Steve takes up with the no good Trampas and his group of rustlers, thus bringing the honest Virginian into conflict with his friend and the quick on the draw Trampas.This story courtesy of writer Owen Wister has been done a number of times, adapted into film form in 1921, 1923 and of course here in this version, it was also made into a television series in 1962. Having not seen any of the other versions I have no frame of reference, but I would wager my last pound sterling that this is not the best adaptation because it fails to live up to its early promise. Joel McCrea takes up lead duties as The Virginian and as decent as an actor as he was in such films like Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach Story and the majestic Ride The High Country, here he looks bored and struggling to feed off what little energy is in the picture. Sonny Tufts as Steve is badly cast, while Barbara Britton as Molly may well make me wish that all my lady teachers at school had looked like her (if they had of been I would have gone more often!), but she comes across as a fish out of water.The one bright spot is Brian Donlevy as the baddie Trampas, resplendent in black (of course), he does a nice line in convincing as a bad guy of worth (something he was excellent at in his career), but even he is not given enough screen time to not only flesh the part out, but to also probably bring out the best of McCrea. The shoot out at the finale is weak and it really cements the deal that this was a badly wasted chance to make a Western of some worth. Maybe it's just one of those pieces of literature that can't fully translate to the screen? Maybe the simply plotted story just isn't up to much anyway? Either way this is a misfire and not one to revisit outside of the always watchable Donlevy. 4/10

Having seen recently "The Ox Bow Incident" I wonder what happened in the years between when "The Virginian" was written and Ox Bow came out. I think people realized that even in the old west a man had the right to a trial. The Virginian is the story of teacher who leaves Vermont and goes to Wyoming. There she meets the Virginian (Joel McCrea) who falls in love with her. There are three features in The Virginian that makes it above average: 1) the West seen through the eyes of a woman who comes from a civilized East. 2) the shocking severity in relation to the cattle rustlers, where even friendship does not count. It is hard to agree with it or accept it, but people at the time the book was written used to think of the West as a totally different world. It is interesting because it shows us the way of thinking at that time. 3) The showdown at the end, at the day of the wedding, it has a lot to do with "High Noon", which was made much later.

Owen Wister, himself, is fascinating to me. The movie version of his book doesn't include the rather excellent banter between the schoolmarm and the hero, nor does it include the evidence of growth and maturity in the early antics of the hero and his friend, Lin. What great fun they had before falling for the schoolmarm. You have to read to get that.Molly appears a bit ditsy in the '46 version and a bit underdeveloped in the book. Thank goodness for the remake with Bill Pullman and Diane Lane. Molly seems to have more depth with Lane playing the role.The '46 version is great, the '99 version is great, but I hope you get to see both to fill in the gaps each seems to have.Its a great plot, fabulous development of romance, and the ending is intense (more so in the '99 version though).