Wagon Master is a 1950 American Western film produced and directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, and Ward Bond.

[4] The film was a personal favorite of Ford himself, who told Peter Bogdanovich in 1967 that "Along with The Fugitive and The Sun Shines Bright, Wagon Master came closest to being what I wanted to achieve.

The pioneers also need guides to lead them across the unknown to the San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory.

They're driven with Mormon determination to reach their "promised land" and get a crop in before the winter rains so that a harvest will provide for a much larger migration which will blindly follow the next Spring.

Watching the train head for the horizon the boys, already bored after just a day in town, catch a pretty redhead's glance, have money but nothing to spend it on, and an irrepressible yen for adventure.

Shortly they encounter a stranded medicine show, complete with "coochie dancers" and top-hatted elixir-drummer, "Doctor" A. Locksley Hall, who are temporarily adopted to save them from perishing.

In spite of the divergent mix of pious, restrained Mormons, happy-go-lucky cowboys, and colorful entertainers, everyone settles in and grows comfortable with one-another.

Celebrating reaching an important source of water in the desert they break out their fiddles and let loose in an evening of spirited squaredancing - interrupted ominously by the arrival of the Cleggs, who are starving, thirsty, and threatening behind a thin veneer of politeness put on by Shiloh; even browbeating his boys leaves him hard-pressed to keep them short-leashed around women and the Doctor's considerable supply of alcohol.

Shiloh is in desperate need of medical attention for a festering gunshot wound he received in the robbery, passing it off as an injury sustained falling off his horse.

Travis is not cowardly, just circumspect, explaining to Sandy that if they two of them get killed everybody will die helplessly in the wilderness...as will the large throng that is expecting a settlement when they arrive at the San Juan, and that precious crop they'll starve without.

Finally, galvanized as one, the band reaches easier going... and the boys are rewarded for their daring, trading in their horses for reins, Sandy unable to restrain a playful kiss on the prim redhead next to him, and Travis smiling next to a glowing Denver, who finally has dropped her guard, and fear of not deserving such a wholesome, handsome, respectful man.

The story idea for Wagon Master emerged while Ford was directing She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) on location in southern Utah.

Critic Dennis Lim has written, "Practically a musical, Wagon Master is filled with frequent song and dance interludes and accompanied by a steady stream of hymns and ballads, performed by the popular country group the Sons of the Pioneers.

That means careful character development and movement, spiced with high spots of action, good drama and leavening comedy moments.

"[25] Dennis Lim wrote in 2009, "Wagon Master is at once the plainest and the fullest expression of Ford's great theme: the emergence of a community.

What little plot exists is secondary to the movie's real concern: celebrating a way of life, that of Mormon pioneers, and placing it in the context of nature.

'"[7] Linda Rasmussen wrote, "This wonderful film emphasizes the virtues of solidarity, sacrifice and tolerance, and shows John Ford at his most masterful, in total control of the production from the casting to the bit players to the grandeur and scope of the visual compositions.

The film, with its breathtaking scenery, brilliant performances by a cast of character actors, and an engaging sense of humor, is a superlative example of the American western.

"[6] David Fear wrote in 2009, "For a modest little movie, this still has all the solid storytelling and visual majesty of Ford's classic works; scholars like Joseph McBride and Peter Bogdanovich actually think it's his masterpiece.

[29] Critic Glenn Kenny wrote of this release, "the main attraction is the film itself, buffed to a lustrous (but still grain-rich) sheen that reveals Bert Glennon's cinematography for the miracle that it was/is.

The reel is stored in an individual secure vault at the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia in order to preserve the film for future generations.