The Covered Wagon

Directed by James Cruze. Adapted by Jack Cunningham from the novel by Emerson Hough. Produced and distributed by Paramount. Released May, 1923.
 

Discovery by Columbus (1492), Settlement of Jamestown (1607), Arrival of Mayflower (1620), French and Indian War (1756), Revolution (1775-1781), Constitution Ratified (1788), War of 1812, Monroe Doctrine (1823), War with Mexico (1846-1848), Civil War (1861-1865), Steve Brodie's leap from Brooklyn Bridge (1886), and War with Germany (1917).

There is one glorious period of American history which is usually omitted from such lists. Indeed, it has received but little recognition, except in the works of Francis Parkman, and in those humble, paper-covered dime novels that used to be frowned upon by the same type of person who now sneers at the movies. This is the period of expansion which commenced about 1846, and which resulted in the settlement of the Pacific Coast. It was then that the pioneers- men, women and children - struggled across the prairies and over the mountains in their trains of covered wagons, passing through incredible hardships and cordons of belligerent Indians that they might ultimately drive their ploughs into the soil of Oregon and California.

They were adventurers, these pioneers, but adventurers of a peculiarly sturdy and heroic type. For them, there was none of the romance that inspired Pizarro, Raleigh or Drake; they were not bold, reckless swashbucklers embarking on perilously fascinating voyages in quest of gold and glory. It is one thing for a man to start off on an expedition in company with a band of fellow adventurers as fearless as he- and another thing for a plain farmer to stride out into the unknown in company with his wife and his children, with no object in view other than the discovery of virgin soil. For this reason, I have a deeper respect for the heroism of the pioneers of the Oregon Trail, and of the Pilgrims of the Mayflower, than for the more sensational exploits of the daring heroes whose blades have flashed in the pages of romance.

Emerson Hough, who had an opportunity to study the old West from the point of view of an eye-witness, wrote a novel called "The Covered Wagon," which was published in the "Saturday Evening Post". There it caught the eye of the movie people, who saw in it material for another good, rousing cow-boy picture. They bought it - and it was not until they had actually started the work of production that they realized the true significance of Hough's story. It turned out to be the one great American epic that the screen has produced; and when I say "epic," I use that much-abused word in its legitimate, or pre-press agent, sense.

With the presentation of The Covered Wagon, I venture to say that the pioneers of the Oregon Trail will receive honorable mention on every school-boy's list, even if he flunks out on all other important dates.

The Covered Wagon was a great picture, not so much because it was based upon a magnificent theme as because it was produced with genuine skill. Jesse L. Lasky, Vice-President of the Paramount Company, was one of the first to recognize its potentialities, and he backed it to the limit. He assigned it to James Cruze, a director who had been advancing rapidly in popular esteem, and he entrusted the adaptation of the story to Jack Cunningham. Both men stuck closely to the point. They refrained from trimming Hough's story with any movie hokum, having sense enough to appreciate the essential simplicity of the drama.

Cruze saw to it that the dust raised by the covered wagons was real dust, that the Indians who battled to save their lands from the white invaders were real Indians, and that the beards on the protruding chins of the pioneers were real beards. As Cruze himself has explained, "there wasn't a false whisker in the picture."

Of the actual acquisition of the story, James Cruze has this to say:

"The Covered Wagon had a curious history before it fell into my hands. The original Emerson Hough novel had been turned down by a number of stars when Mary Miles Minter saw it - and was attracted to it. As I understand it, she had a clause in her contract giving her a certain choice of story. So the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation bought The Covered Wagon for her. Then the first difficulties presented themselves, with the result that three directors declined the script and Miss Minter finally did another picture instead. In brief, it was not possible to spend a large amount of money on any production where the star received a salary of the Minter magnitude- and still release the photoplay at a profit."

This may be considered a miracle of good luck, for if The Covered Wagon had fallen to the lot of Mary Miles Minter, it would undoubtedly have been lost forever. Of all the stellar collapses that the silent drama has known (and it has known plenty of them), Miss Minter's was undoubtedly the most dismal. Moreover, The Covered Wagon was not a star picture - any more than was Nanook of the North- and it would have been seriously damaged if it had been converted into a vehicle for the advancement of personal vanity.

When James Cruze was finally empowered to go ahead with The Covered Wagon, he cast about for a suitable location in which to stage its scenes. The action of Hough's story started in the settlement called Westport Landing (now Kansas City), and continued with the wagon train across the prairies to Fort Bridger, where the first whispers were heard of the discovery of gold in California. Beyond Fort Bridger the train divided- one unit, composed of the more adventurous youths, going to the gold fields, and the other proceeding as originally planned to Oregon.

Cruze finally found a place, in the Snake Valley of Nevada, which would serve for all the scenes, from Westport Landing to the Rocky Mountains. Thither he went, with a company of one hundred and twenty-seven people and a large staff of carpenters and technical men. He recruited a thousand extras from the inhabitants of that sparsely settled district (some of them came as far as three hundred miles for their ten dollars a day). He also enlisted the services of seven hundred and fifty Indians, who did a thriving business on the side selling souvenirs to the members of the movie company.

As the location in the Snake Valley was eighty-five miles from the nearest railroad, Cruze had to employ a fleet of motor trucks to carry supplies for his large army of workers. He pitched a camp of some five hundred tents, where his entire company remained for eight weeks. Living under these adverse conditions, the players in The Covered Wagon forgot that they were actors, and there was, in their work, an understanding for the hardships of the original pioneers that never could have been simulated in the luxurious atmosphere of Hollywood.

The wagon train divides in The Covered Wagon

Of the four hundred covered wagons used in the picture, some were actual relics of the plains, furnished by the farmers whose fathers had used them in the brave old days. The rest were built on the spot.

After the eight weary weeks in the Snake Valley, Cruze moved his company to Antelope Island, in Great Salt Lake, where he made some scenes of a buffalo hunt. He then returned to the Hollywood base, with many memorable reels of film and a thoroughly worn-out troupe of movie actors.

"At that time," Cruze explains, "The Covered Wagon ended on the plains. There was nothing of the present California and Oregon sequences. We had thought that the continuous scenes of the pioneer caravan wending its way across the country would grow monotonous. So we ended the tale out there near Fort Bridger.

"But, when we returned to California and put the print together, we revised our estimate. The wagon train curiously became the star, with a personality all its own. Then we decided to show the actual consummation of the long migration across the plains and the Sierras.

"So, three months later, we went to Sonora, California, for the snow scenes and there rebuilt the wagon train, for the old wagons had been discarded, broken up or sold back in Nevada. This added a big expense, but it gave The Covered Wagon its logical culmination. Don't forget that Mr. Lasky deserves his praise for adding this huge item to the final cost- and adding it purely with the thought of bettering a picture which could have been sold as it was."

The outstanding quality in The Covered Wagon, as it appeared in its final form, was its absolute honesty. There was nothing false in it, nothing that was insincere, or trumped up, or phony. James Cruze obtained. his effects by legitimate methods, without recourse to the mechanical tricks which have spoiled so many potentially good pictures in the past. In Jack Cunningham's adaptation of the story, the same spirit of straightforwardness prevailed. He had the wisdom to realize that he must set forth the details as simply and directly as possible; he shunned spurious hokum in his drama, his sentiment and his humor, and relied instead on the intense vigor of reality.

The most stalwart and picturesque figure in the cast was Ernest Torrence, a lean Scotchman who quitted musical comedy three years ago to play the villain in Tol'able David. Since then, he has become an actor of undisputed prominence in the movies. There have been few characterizations on the screen so vital, so elementally human as his impersonation of a rugged old frontiersman in The Covered Wagon. Tully Marshall was splendid in a similar role- and had the distinction of raising the best beard in a production which was literally rich with honest whiskers. Lois Wilson was a calm, charming heroine, and Charles Ogle made a sturdy pioneer.

The hero of the piece was J. Warren Kerrigan, a star who dates back to the earliest days of Western melodramas in the movies. He was a screen celebrity long before Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks or Rex Ingram came into prominence- before Jackie Coogan was born. In The Covered Wagon, he displayed his great horsemanship to good advantage, but his performance was not in harmony with the picture as a whole. In fact, he was the one figure in the entire picture who suggested that, after all, it was only a movie- and not an actual record of the real conquest of the West.

Such were the elements which went into the preparation of The Covered Wagon. That they were strong elements, and well blended, is proven by the picture's astounding success. Although, at the time of writing, it has not gained anywhere near its full circulation, it has already established itself as the greatest money maker that the motion picture industry has ever known. It cost, according to the most reliable estimates, $782,000, with a great deal more added for advertising and exploitation. It is believed that this figure will be covered by the returns from only two theatres, the Criterion in New York and Graumann's in Hollywood, in each of which the picture has been playing to capacity for six months.

As there are over fifteen thousand movie theatres in the United States alone, it will be seen that The Covered Wagon is destined to turn in an extraordinarily neat profit. Nor can anyone conscientiously begrudge the Paramount Company a nickel of this tremendous gain. It was a far-sighted, intelligent piece of work on their part, and whatever they make will be well deserved.

Of Emerson Hough, the author of The Covered Wagon, much could be written- for he was a character as picturesque as any that he created. In his early life he travelled all over the West- from the Rio Grande to the Columbia River- and saw it before it had been surrendered to the oil stock promoters, the real estate men, E.H. Harriman, James J. Hill, and the film producers. After he had knocked about aimlessly for many years, he started to set down his impressions in stories and novels.

The Covered Wagon was his greatest success, and after its production as a movie, he received some of the recognition that was his due. Almost all of his earlier books were bought by the picture people, who are always ready to trade on an established reputation.

In May, 1923, Hough died. He had the ultimate satisfaction of knowing that he had honestly reflected a period in American History of which every American has a right to be proud.

Robert E. Sherwood, "The Covered Wagon," in "The Best Moving Pictures of 1922-23," Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1923, pages 71-77.

© 1999, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

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