Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews in "The Ox-Bow Incident"

The Ox-Box Incident (1943) is an American western film directed by Wiliam A. Wellman, starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, and an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Anthony Quinn, Harry Morgan, Mary Beth Hughes, and Jane Darwell. The film is based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark published in 1940.

Cowboys Art Croft (Harry Morgan) and Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) ride into Bridger's Wells, Nevada in 1885. Immediately the two are suspected of being cattle rustlers. While at Darby’s Saloon a man comes in and announces that rancher Larry Kinkaid has been murdered.

Almost immediately, a posse if formed lead by Major Tetley (Frank Conroy) and his son Gerald (William Eythe). Art and Gil, originally resistant to joining the posse do so in order to deflect suspicion from themselves.

The posse comes across Donald Martin (Dana Andrews); a Mexican, Juan Martínez (Anthony Quinn); and an old man, Alva Hardwicke (Francis Ford). Martin is accused of killing Kinkaid and stealing his cattle by the posse. Martin claims that he purchased the cattle from Kinkaid but no one believes him. What will the posse do? Will Martin, Martinez, and Hardwicke receive justice at the hands of the posse?

Victor Killian, Henry Fonda, and Harry Morgan

William A. Wellman (1896 – 1975) was an American film director. He started his directorial career in silent films. Wellman directed Wings (1927) which was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony. Wellman directed two classic films released in 1937: Nothing Sacred and A Star is Born. Other important films directed by Wellman include Beau Geste (1939), Roxie Hart (1942), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Yellow Sky (1948), Battleground (1949), and The High and the Mighty (1954).

Henry Fonda (1905 –1982) was an American stage and film actor. Fonda came to Hollywood in 1935 and became a star overnight. Early starring roles include Jezebel (1938), Jesse James (1939), Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), and The Grapes of Wrath (1940) for which he received his first Best Actor nomination for playing Tom Joad. Fonda played opposite Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (1942), My Darling Clementine (1946), and Mister Roberts (1955). In 1981 he finally won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as Norman Thayer Jr. in On Golden Pond.

Dana Andrews (center)

Dana Andrews (1909 – 1992) was an American stage and film actor. During the 1940s, Andrews was a major star and leading man starring in Laura (1944), State Fair (1945), A Walk in the Sun (1945), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Canyon Passage (1946), Boomerang! (1947), and Daisy Kenyon (1947) co-starring Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda. During the 1950s, film roles were harder to come by, but he had success in Elephant Walk (1954) co-starring Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Finch, While the City Sleeps (1956), and Curse of the Demon (1957). In 1958 he replaced Henry Fonda on Broadway in Two for the Seesaw.


The Ox-Bow Incident Trivia 

• Henry Fonda considered this, along with The Grapes of Wrath as his two best films. 
• Completed in 1942, the film wasn’t released until 1943. 
• Clint Eastwood told the American Film Institute (AFI) that this was his favorite film. 
• Henry Fonda’s role was originally offered to Gary Cooper. 
• The film was a box office failure, but it was still nominated for Best Picture. 
• The opening scene in the saloon is almost identical to the one in Yellow Sky, also directed by William A. Wellman.
• Francis Ford who plays the old man Hardwicke was director John Ford’s older brother.

To watch to the movie on YouTube, click the link below. Be sure to use this link because there are other versions on this channel that are not of the same quality.



After you’ve watched the movie, join us for a discussion on Zoom September 1, 2020, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time. Zoom invitation and the link are below.

Stephen Reginald is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Discussion of "The Ox-Bow Incident"
Time: Sep 1, 2020, 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78506166194?pwd=MGtuUDZVckRDcTl1VFpJN21aSmVOdz09

Meeting ID: 785 0616 6194
Passcode: 9wQ0G8


Questions for discussion:
1. Do you think the posse would have been organized without the Major’s leadership?
2. Why do you think Art and Gil join the posse? Is it out of fear or excitement?
3. What about the other men and “Ma?”
4. What did you think of Donald Martin’s (Dana Andrews) character? The old man Hardwicke (Ford), and Martinez (Anthony Quinn).
5. Arthur Davies (Harry Davenport) seemed to be sympathetic to Martin and his companions. What do you think his motivation was?
6. The way Henry Fonda is photographed reading Martin’s letter is quite unusual. Did you think it was effective? Would you have filmed it that way?

Debbie Reynolds made me love the movies

I grew up going to the movies. I’m old enough to remember a time when movies didn’t have ratings. When I was young, it was completely acceptable for a group of grade-school-age kids to go the movies without any adult supervision. Often on the weekends, our whole family would go to the movies. My sister, who is 8 years older than I, also took me to the movies on a regular basis. We probably saw every Disney movie released between 1963 and 1970. But the movie I most remember seeing from my childhood is How the West Was Won, which was released in the U.S. on February 20, 1963.*

How the West Was Won was the epic story of four generations of the Prescott family as they migrated from New York to the west. The film took place between 1839 and 1889 and was shot in the curved wide-screen Cinerama process, using three cameras filming simultaneously, with each camera capturing a third of the action. When shown in theaters, three projectors were required and they had to be synchronized exactly so that the three panels would match. Although this process was technically cumbersome and had its drawbacks, for a big sprawling production like How the West Was Won, it was perfect. The screen was so big and wide that it was almost overwhelming. I was six years old when I first saw it. The film’s scope and the story of the Prescott family mesmerized me. I remember being taken by both Carroll Baker and Debbie Reynolds who played Eve and Lilith Prescott respectively. But I was especially taken by Reynolds’s character. She was the rebellious sister who was funny and cute.

How movie theaters were set up for Cinerama

During one scene, the Prescott family is taken in by river pirates headed by Jeb Hawkins played by Walter Brennan (Amos from The Real McCoys!). With some help from fur trader Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), the Prescott family is saved. But the Prescotts don’t just sit around and wait to be rescued. Oh, no. And Lillith is not afraid to fight for her family. There is one memorable scene where Hawkins’s daughter, Dora (Brigid Bazlen), tries to escape with the Prescott family’s money, but is spied by Lilith. Lilith takes the sack of money from Dora and proceeds to smack her in the head with it! What a brave girl! From that moment on I was smitten with Reynolds’s character.

After the encounter with the river pirates, Older sister Eve ends up marrying Linus and the two homestead in Ohio, where Mr. and Mrs. Prescott died in the river rapids on their journey west.

The Prescott family sing a song with some other travelers west.
Debbie Reynolds is second from right next to her screen sister, Carroll Baker

Lilith decides to continue moving west and ends up in St. Louis as a dance hall girl where she meets gambler Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck). When he discovers that Lilith has inherited a California gold mine, he follows her on a wagon train taking her there. The two eventually marry and settle in San Francisco.

Publicity shot with (from left to right) Carroll Baker (Eve Prescott), James Stewart (Linus Rawlings),
and Debbie Reynolds (Lilith Prescott)

The story then turns to the Civil War, where Linus Rawlings is killed in battle. Eve and Linus’s oldest son Zeb (George Peppard) wants to enlist and join the fight, but once he does and sees the horrors of war, he has second thoughts. But he endures and after the war he meets one of his father’s fur trapping buddies Jethro Stuart (Henry Fonda). Zeb a lieutenant in the U.S. Calvary, is in charge of keeping the peace while the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads are racing to join the east and the west. Jethro is in charge of supplying the railroad crew with meat, as well as being a go-between with the Indians. When railroad man Mike King (Richard Widmark) breaks a treaty with the Indians, who retaliate by sending a stampede of buffalo through his camp, killing many women and children, Zeb resigns in disgust and moves to Arizona.

Reynolds and Gregory Peck who played her husband, Cleve Van Valen

We go back to Lilith who is now a widow forced to sell her home and possessions in San Francisco to pay off her debts. She travels to Arizona to meet her nephew Zeb and his wife Julie (Carolyn Jones) and their two sons Prescott (Stanley Livingston from My Three Sons) and Zeke (Bryan Russell) and their daughter, Eve. Lilith wants Zeb to manage her ranch, which is her one remaining asset. But before they can get to the ranch, Zeb, a marshall, has to do battle with the outlaw Charlie Gant (Eli Wallach). Zeb killed Gant’s brother in a gunfight and Gant has threatened Zeb and his family with revenge. An exciting fight takes place on a train with a large gold shipment. A shootout between Zeb and his men against Gant and his gang results in a fantastic train wreck. Gant and his men are all dead. Zeb and his family, along with his Aunt Lilith begin their journey to Arizona to start a new life.

George Peppard (Zeb Prescott), Reynolds, unidentified little girl, Carolyn Jones (Julie Prescott)

How the West Was Won was the first movie that I can remember being able to follow the narrative. For the first time it hit me that movies weren’t just images on a big screen. Movies could reach a person on an emotional level. I was able to relate to the Prescott family and their struggles and I was pulling for them. Debbie Reynolds’s character, fought with bandits, survived the rapids in Ohio, a wagon train Indian attack, had some success as a showgirl in St. Louis, made and lost a fortune in California, and eventually retires with her nephew and his family on a ranch. She was in the first and closing scenes, which tied all the generations together.

Seeing the film as an adult I find it still resonates with me. Reynolds’s performance holds up and is really quite remarkable. A very young looking 30 years old when she made How the West Was Won, Reynolds effectively portrays the young teenage Lilith, developing into the older and wiser showgirl and businesswoman. She is the film’s emotional anchor, holding her own with some of the biggest movie stars of all time.

It was my connection to Reynolds’s characterization of Lilith in How the West Was Won which led me to love the movies and appreciate the power of visual storytelling. Whenever How the West Was Won is on Turner Classic Movies, it’s hard for me to resist watching it, even though I have it on DVD (two copies actually!). The story, the stars, the musical score, all hold a special place in my heart and I have Debbie Reynolds, in part, to thank for that.

*How the West Was Won was released in U.K. November 1, 1962.

Publisher releases trailer for "John Wayne: The Life and Legend" in bookstores April 1, 2014

Check out this book trailer for Scott Eyman’s new biography of John Wayne. John Wayne: The Life and Legend will be available for purchase at bookstores everywhere or from Amazon on April 1, 2014. I received a review copy a few months ago. To check out my review, click here.

Eyman examines both the man and the legend, which is quite revealing. Even the most devoted Wayne fan is bound to find a lot of new material to chew on in this comprehensive biography.

To see my book review click here.

You can follow Eyman on Twitter @Eyman1