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:: ''For the 2007 Porter Wagoner album see: Wagonmaster'' :: ''For the general concept, see Wagon master'' :: ''For the 1929 Ken Maynard film see: The Wagon Master'' | runtime = 86 min. | country = USA | language = English | budget = }} ''Wagon Master'' is a 1950 Western film about a Mormon pioneer wagon train to the San Juan River in Utah. The film was conceived, produced, and directed by John Ford, who is often listed among the greatest film directors.〔〔 The film starred Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, and Ward Bond. ''Wagon Master'' inspired the US television series ''Wagon Train'' (1957–1965), which starred Ward Bond until his death in 1960.〔 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."〔 While the critical and audience response to ''Wagon Master'' was lukewarm on its release, over the years several critics have come to view it as one of Ford's masterpieces.〔〔〔〔 ==Plot== The film opens with a prelude showing a murderous robbery by the outlaw Clegg family (the patriarch Shiloh (Charles Kemper) and his four "boys"). The credits then follow the prelude, which was a stylistic innovation at its time.〔 A Mormon wagon train led by the Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) around 1880 has reached Crystal City, and needs a wagon master to lead it further to its destination — the San Juan River country in southeastern Utah Territory. Their wagon train is being expelled from Crystal City by the townspeople there, and at the last minute horse traders Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey, Jr.) take the wagon master job. Along the way the train adds the wagon of a medicine show troupe, who, en route to California, have become stranded without water. The westward passage of the wagon train is marked by the beginnings of romances with the wagon masters, by a Mormon square dance celebrating a successful desert passage, and by dancing with a band of Navajo. All goes well enough until the Cleggs, fleeing a posse from Crystal City, force themselves into the wagon train. The train surmounts an encounter with the posse, a washed out trail blocking the way west, and ultimately a violent confrontation with the homicidal Cleggs. The film's conclusion leaves the wagon train and its wagon master on the verge of entry into the San Juan country.〔〔 There is a final montage, which Richard Jameson characterizes as follows: "Wagon Master has scant interest in the prosaic, being preeminently a musical and a poem. ... it's the final montage that lifts the movie into another realm entirely. There are shots we've seen before - landmarks, vistas, the communal dance - but also shots we haven't. ... It's a subtler, deeper variation on the closing, transfiguring memory images of ''How Green Was My Valley'' (1941)."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wagon Master」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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