Westward The Women (1951) follows Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor) as he leads a group of one-hundred and forty women (including Denise Darcel, Hope Emerson and Julie Bishop) from Chicago to Southern California to be brides for Roy Whitman’s (John McIntire) ranch hands. Along the trail Wyatt’s male hired hands quit, leaving Wyatt, Whitman and comic relief Ito (Henry Nakamura) alone to lead the women on the perilous journey. Through numerous tragedies, mishaps, and Apache raids the women hating Wyatt learns just how tough and resourceful women are.
Westward The Women was conceived by Frank Capra but ultimately directed by William A. Wellman. Capra’s influence is felt throughout the film in its themes of community triumphing over the odds. But it is Wellman’s direction that really carries the film and sells the proto-feminist message. Wellman had been honing his skills as a director of white-knuckle action sequences since the silent era and he more than delivers in Westward The Women. What’s different here is that women are given the same machismo and toughness on screen as any of their male counterparts.
The character Maggie O’Malley (Lenore Lonergan) is particularly significant in Westward The Women as the resident tomboy. O’Malley is the first to adopt wearing pants and is the only woman to carry a sidearm. O’Malley’s presentation and rugged cowboy behavior opens the character up to twenty-first century queer coding. She is the equivalent of Marlene Dietrich in presentation and in her subversive role in the film as a sharpshooter.
The character of Wyatt on the other hand is firmly grounded in the moment of the film’s production. Taylor plays a character close to Bushrod Gentry who he would play in Many Rivers To Cross (1955). Like Bushrod, Wyatt is vocally anti-woman to the point that the character almost invites an overt queer reading. The last minute romantic connection between Taylor and Darcel does little to dispel this interpretation. This is doubly ironic considering Taylor’s real life homophobia and disdain of feminist values.
Interestingly Westward The Women has been undergoing a kind of rediscovery after director Alexander Payne cited it as a favorite during the promotion of his film The Holdovers (2023). Though not entirely unproblematic, the politics and social values of Westward The Women are closer to those of 2024 than they are to the typical films of the fifties. Westward The Women is far more inclusive and much more feminist than it seemingly has any right to be and is wholly deserving of being included in a revised canon of classic films.
