The Covered Wagon (1923), directed by James Cruze. One of the most influential westerns, The Covered Wagon is impressive in scope and the grandeur of the plains. The sheer number of Conestoga wagons, horses, cattle, bulls, people that fill the screen is spectacular. The story has two wagon trains converging at Westport Landing (Kansas City) in May 1848 and embarking on a journey to Oregon, a journey that finds hardship and conflict along the way. Near the end, the wagons meet a man who announces that gold has been found in “Californy” and this announcement complicates things further. If all this – the river crossing, the attack by Natives, the evening music and dance, the snowfall, the drinking bout and play on William Tell – were not enough, we have the love triangle: Sam Woodhull (Alan Hale), Will Banion (J Warren Kerrigan), and Molly Wingate (Lois Wilson). The Native people do not, as you would expect from a film of this time, have much to do beyond gesture excitedly and serve to register the dangers of the wilderness, but it is noteworthy that Native people appear to be playing the roles, for the most part, of Native people. The film does have one insistent symbol, not a gun nor a knife nor a rope, but a plough. The plough represents order and, dare I say, civilization. The weapons of conflict will be, must be, fashioned into ploughshares. As I say above, this is an influential western with impressive camera work and grand vistas. It opened the way for John Ford’s The Iron Horse that appeared the following year. Finally, I give a nod to the tobacco-chewing kid with the banjo; he plays a more important role in the action than you might, at first, think he will.