The Virginian

Cecil B. DeMille's second feature film was this oldest of westerns where a whole lot of what became cliché was original. Owen Wister's novel The Virginian was the first of the adult western fiction that spawned the careers of such writers as Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. Previous to that the penny dreadfuls of the 19th century from such hack writers as Ned Buntline covered that field.

A lot of the principal players from DeMille's first film The Squaw Man carried over into The Virginian including star Dustin Farnum who played The title role and his wife Winifred Kingston who played the first of westerns crinoline heroines schoolmarm Molly Wood. A cliché in the making.

The story is familiar to everyone. Kingston has come west out of boredom with the east and becomes the new school teacher in a rough and very rural part of Wyoming territory. The mysterious man known only as The Virginian is your cowboy hero with a bit of rough humor to him. There's a scene here about how he and his playful pals switch babies in a make shift nursery and how couples at a square dance all go home with the wrong babies. Can't see Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea doing that.

But the basic plot we know is there. The Virginian's pal Steve after a warning from Farnum gets caught cattle rustling and Farnum is forced to hang him. He also swears to get Trampas played by Billy Elmer and Trampas who already has a grudge against The Virginian is out to get him as well.

It turns out like you would expect, but this was the mold they all came from.