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Shot on a relatively low budget between larger projects, Wagon Master was, according to Ford himself, one of his "purest movies." The implications of the drive into the wilderness are unmistakably mythical, yet the tone is relaxed, humorous, endlessly fresh. Simplicity goes hand in hand with experimentation...

The Cleggs step in, figuring to hide from a pursuing posse--and yes, there is tension, there is danger, but an odd thing happens: they start bonding with the Mormons too (about as open and charming a depiction of that branch of Christianity, incidentally, as any I've seen on the big screen). Not freely, no, and of course there will be the inevitable showdown, but one effect of travel and hard experience (Ford seems to say) is that even the unlikeliest of folk forge a connection.

This may be the closest Ford ever got to making a musical, a form that's usually collective in spirit; the Sons of the Pioneers--a vocal group that Ford would use again on his next feature, the last and least of his cavalry-trilogy films, Rio Grande--sings no less than four songs, and when cowpokes Carey and Johnson decide to join the Mormons, their decision is expressed by singing the movie's theme song.

Seldom has the western landscape seemed such a tangible emblem of hope and freedom. A masterpiece beyond question—but a masterpiece that never degenerates into pomposity or self-consciousness. It's American filmmaking at its finest and most eloquent.

Well served by an unmannered cast led by Ben Johnson, Joanne Dru and Ward Bond, Ford does not waste any time over the subtleties of characterization and twists of plot. He strokes boldly across the canvas of the American past as he concentrates on the evocative images of a folk tradition that no other American director has ever been able to render.