Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1621 in VHS
• Released on: 1994-04-25
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 116 minutes

Customer Reviews

Striking and unique Western
Robert Taylor -a prominent male star of its era -gets top billing in this exceptional Western but it it among the small number of genre movies that focuses primarily on women and their role in opening up the West .
It is blessed by having the experienced genre hand William Wellman in the director's chair and also by being able to call on the services of cinematographer William Mellor whose striking monochrome photography shows the rugged landscape to great advantage
It is 1851 and rugged Californian rancher Roy Whitman -played well by John McIntire -hires trail guide Buck Wyatt ( Robert Taylor )to guide a troop of 150 women from Chicago to his ranch to provide brides for his lonely cowhands and other residents of the area .The women who sign up for the venture are a cross section of society ;there is a a robust Massachusetts woman ,the widow of a deep sea fisherman ; a schoolteacher ;an Italian widow and her nine year old son ; a pregnant single woman ;and the main heroine of the movie A Frenchwoman of dubious past Fifi Danon ( Denise Dax ).These -along with many others embark on the perilous journey .Trouble flares with some of the men hired to accompany the party and Tylor does not scruple to enforce his rules reagarding his men who fraternise with the women -death .Most of the crew leave Taylor and the women to go it alone .This is where the movie shifts gear into a tale of a group of outsiders banding together to overcome great odds and the many perils of the trail-Indians , hauling waagons over mountains ,quicksand ,storms and freak accidents .It is greatly helped by having a cast of women who look capable of achieving these odds rather than a colection of people who would appear lost if they were out of sight of the beauty salon
Taylor is good as the misogynistic Wyatt who comes to moderate his views on his charges -" There are only two things that scare me and a good woman is both of them " is a key line from the early part of the picture and is spoken by Wyatt .He comes to regard his charges as great women and demand the waiting men to be worthy of them

It is useful to set this along side the best known wagon train movie John Ford's Wagonmaster which set out to achieve a mythic and archetypal quality ,right down to its self consciously mythologising main title song .The Wellman movie is a great deal more specific in its focus on one particular group and is a worthy tribute to the pioneer women , a group whose role in Western expansion has not received its due from the movie industry

A True-to-life Adventure
"Westward the Women" is the story of a group of women who have been recruited as wives for a settlement of men in a California valley. Their hopes and dreams, hardships and struggles, laughter and tears are all a part of their trek to the west. Soon after leaving for California, nearly all of the men who signed on to work with the wagon train left during the night. The train boss (Robert Taylor) decided that he would "make men out of the women" so they could be tough enough to make it on their own. This film gives you a feeling of actually being there. It is a true-to-life adventure--one that you will want to come back to and relive.

A Wonderful Adventure
"Westward the Women" is the story of a group of women who have been recruited as wives for a settlement of men in a California valley. Their hopes and dreams, hardships and struggles, laughter and tears are all a part of their trek to the west. Soon after leaving for California, nearly all of the men who signed on to work with the wagon train left during the night. The train boss decided he would "make men out of the women" so they could be tough enough to make it on their own. This film gives you a feeling of actually being there. It is a true-to-life adventure-- one you will want to come back to and relive.