Westward the Women

No “bundling” – that’s the law as laid down by Buck Wyatt (Robert Taylor). Female-centric western Westward the Women is not only a clear influence on Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff but a great demonstration of the talents of director William Wellman, who’d been doing westerns for 30 years by the time he got round to shooting this 1951 movie, so knew exactly what it was all about. The story is about a convoy of women making the arduous journey out West, where there’s a chronic shortage of men. Sign up and choose your husband is the big idea – it’s the women who do the choosing, picking out the man they fancy from … Read more