The Great Directors: John Ford (The Frontiersman)

On their way to Panama "Red" Saunders, a youth, meets Mary Smith and Arthur Saxon They become friends and he learns Mary is on her way to do missionary work with a Mr. Belknap. Arthur and Mary quarrel frequently and Mary tells him though she loves him, he must prove himself to be a man. Arthur loathes Belknap and denounces him, but Mary is loyal At the dock Jim, a rancher, asks the captain for a husky white man who can be trusted. The captain recommends Red. Through his grit Red wins out. Thrown from his horse, he is hurled into the lap of Orinez, a little fat Spaniard, head of the Government party and the ablest man in Panama. Red saves him from three bandits one night and the two men become good friends. Red goes to see Mary, who demands that he never speak to Arthur. Red goes to the store of Perez where Arthur is working, and finds him in a deplorable condition. Arthur tells him why he has been drinking hard. From the time they were children he and Mary had been sweethearts. They met Belknap, and Mary became interested in missionary work. One night he had been accosted by a woman who fainted in his arms. He carried her to the store, fed her and then takes her to his room to rest, after which he left. Belknap hastened to tell Mary. When Arthur next saw her she told him that his presence was an insult. Red goes with Perez to his home. Orinez rushes into the room and tells them he had seen Belknap meet Zampeto, the leader of the revolution, and heard him promise to make the converts join the revolution, if Zampeto would endow his mission. Red hears the revolutionists on their way to the ranch, so with the help of three men he barricades the store and hurls cans of tomatoes at the crowd, but is wounded severely by the time a troop of soldiers come to their rescue. Orinez, Perez and Jim arrange to trap the revolutionists that night. When Red finds out about their plans, in spite of his helpless arm, he joins Arthur and the other men, fires at Arthur, wounds him in the arm, and states he wants to tell Mary he is wounded and he couldn't tell a lie to her. The revolutionists are caught and Red with Orinez and Perez goes to the mission. Belknap enters and lunges at Red with a knife, but Red thrusts his revolver in his face and gives Belknap an hour to make his escape. Mary rushes into the room. He tells her Arthur is wounded. She demands to be taken to him. When Belknap tries to follow them, Perez and Orinez remind him he has only an hour. Though Mary refuses to listen Red insists upon telling her the whole story. They hurry to the hut. Arthur puts his good arm about her as she throws her arms about his neck. Red turns away and goes alone toward the town.

Cattleman Flint cuts off farmer Sims' water supply. When Sims' son Ted goes for water, one of Flint's men kills him. Cheyenne is sent to finish off Sims, but finding the family at the newly dug grave, he changes sides.

Convict Cheyenne Harry escapes from prison in a garbage truck and boards a train, where he eludes capture with the help of passenger Henry Beaufort.

A mother is convinced her son is a ranch owner when in fact he is an outlaw, and she just saves him from hanging.

A ranch foreman battles a rich stockbroker for the affections of a beautiful young woman.

The head of a band of cattle rustlers is defied, prompting him to call his phantom riders together and route the defier's cattle, and then seek their owner intent on taking his life.

Cheyenne Harry and his pals, bent on helping their friend Rawhide Jack, attend a rodeo with the intent to win the prize and to hand the winnings over to Jack. Harry is the successful winner and after the rodeo the boys get drunk and fall asleep.

Cheyenne Harry tries to help his outlaw friend Padden evade arrest after Padden has drunkenly shot another man. In the end, the two mismatched friends fight it out, leaving Padden dead.

A man declined admission to fight in the American Civil War joins a gang of marauders and winds up as a fugitive.

A cowboy must save his girlfriend from captivity and then cross the desert on foot with a single waterhole on the way.

Cowboy Lin McLean's restlessness takes him to Denver, where he becomes enamored of a waitress named Katie.

An Indian scholar seeks an American colleague who is working on a powerful explosive, trying to get to his formula by taking advantage of his drinking problem.

Fellow convicts Cheyenne Harry and Buck Masters become even more bitter enemies when Buck agrees to tamper with the prison's books for the warden's greedy son.

Wealthy ranch owner Cheyenne Harry decides he needs a housekeeper, but his cowboys decide he needs a wife and advertise in an eastern newspaper.

The Northwest Mounties are after Cheyenne Harry for the murder of an Indian boy, and the only witness to the crime is a priest - who can't tell what he saw because the real killer, Black Michael, has confessed to him.

The marshal of a wild Kansas border town is killed in a gunfight in a saloon. His son, Cheyenne Harry, shoots dead two of the killers. Not wanting to lose both her son and her husband to gun violence, Harry's mother gets him to agree never to carry a gun again. However, Harry's rival for the beautiful Conchita, Boone Travis, commits a murder and frames Harry for it. Complications ensue.

Harry's bride is murdered at their wedding along with Harry's mother and father, and the good-hearted outlaw turns grimly malevolent.

The owner of a gambling hall is entrusted with the care of a pretty young girl. He falls in love with her, but he must decide whether to let her go to his best friend, with whom he believes her to be in love, or to try to win her for himself.

An Arizona cattleman defeats the rustlers and the sheriff who is in league with them.

Jim Kyneton, once a member of an outlaw gang, joins the Texas Rangers and is forced to track down his former friends and his half-brother Nick, who have been robbing a gold mine.

"Cheyenne Harry", owner of the biggest cattle ranch in his corner of the West, is having trouble with John Merritt, a land-grabbing Chicago meat-packer. By some artifice of shrewd legal aid, Merritt manages to seize Harry's ranch under a bogus writ of foreclosure. Failing to get justice by his many letters to Merritt, "Cheyenne Harry" goes East and calls at the millionaire's mansion. At first, Merritt refuses to see him. Then, to cause amusement for his daughter Helen and her guests, he invites the "uncouth" Westerner into his dining hall. He is sure that he will make some grave error in table deportment and afford them all a laugh. To the amazement of Merrit and the guests Harry's table manners are faultless. Then, to trick him into an embarrassing position, Merritt eats with his knife. Harry, realizing that it is proper for the guest to follow the example of the host, does likewise. He leaves the house chagrined but more determined than ever to get justice from Merritt.

This is the same plot as Three Godfathers. Three outlaws rescue a baby in the desert and with barely any water left try to return to the town in which they just robbed a bank.

Barry O'Connor, son of Patrick O'Connor, plumber and political power, is called to the residence of William Tompkins whom he is to "put over" in the coming election.

Laurie Devon is a New York playwright who, having had one success, refuses to work on another play.

Brothers-in-law Jefferson Todd and Louis Castiga come to blows on a Mississippi River steamer when Todd discovers Castiga there with a woman.