The Great Meadow is a 1931 American Pre-Code Western film, produced and distributed by MGM with direction by Charles Brabin.

It is based on the novel The Great Meadow by Elizabeth Madox Roberts, which is similar in theme to Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds, which was later made into the 1939 film of the same name directed by John Ford.

The title background is a sculpture of an American frontierswoman, a child on her left arm and the barrel of a flintlock in her right hand.

The picture is dedicated to the women of the wilderness, "the wives and sweethearts who endured martyrdom for love's sake [and] lie quiet and unsung in the great meadow."

In 1777, on their farm in Albemarle County in the Piedmont of Virginia, the Hall family go about their routine, drawing water, feeding chickens, forging tools, plowing rocky hillsides.

In the evening, Thomas Hall (Russell Simpson) reads the latest war news to his family—his wife Molly (Sarah Padden), their grown son, Rubin (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams), their daughters Diony (Eleanor Boardman) and Betty (Anita Louise), and the youngest child, Samuel (Andy Shuford).

Rubin dips candles, Diony runs her spinning wheel, Molly works at her loom, Betty tends a pair of lambs and Sally knits.

But Evan is soon upstaged by the arrival of Berk Jarvis (Johnny Mack Brown), with a token for Diony—a beautiful bird fan—and news of a meeting that night in the clearing to hear Daniel Boone (John Miljan) speak.

He describes it as the promised land, with ample game and lush meadows, with rich soil "like cream."

He will blaze the trail for them: Southwest to the Holston River and across the Blue Ridge to Mount Powell, from which they will see a white cliff, the gateway to Kentucky, then on to Fort Harrod and the great meadows.

Inspired by this speech and ignoring the desperate warnings of Sally Tolliver, whose husband and children were killed by Indians, Berk, his mother Elvira (Lucille La Verne), his younger brother, Jack (William Bakewell) and several others, including Evan, volunteer.

The journey takes much longer than planned as they wade through mud flats, travel up and down mountains and ford rivers.

An Indian finds them, kills Elvira and scalps her, in front of Diony, before fleeing at the sound of gunshots... Berk and three other men are about to set out to get salt, necessary for the settlement's survival.

Berk and Diony, who is still recovering from the shock of her mother-in-law's murder, talk about what she will tell their child, a strong boy to be named Tom.

Black Fox brandishes a length of hair and cries "Squaw Jarvis," enraging Berk.

They fight and Jarvis wins, but two men who came out of the camp with Black Fox run to where Berk lies on the ground...

She tells of how her skills with spindle and loom made it possible for her to make clothing out of nettles and buffalo hair and to teach other women to do the same.

Although Berk says he doesn't blame anyone, a confrontation brews and when they start talking about whether they are going to fight with fists or cudgels, Diony stops them cold.