Wagon Tracks
About Wagon Tracks
In 1850 desert guide Buckskin Hamilton rides to Westport Landing to meet his brother Billy, just out of medical school, off a steamer from St. Louis. On the boat Billy catches gambler Donald Washburn cheating. In the fight a gun goes off and Billy is killed. Donald convinces his sister Jane that she pulled the trigger. Buckskin, told she fired in self-defense, agrees to lead the train west on the Santa Fe Trail, Jane and Donald and Donald's partner Guy Merton among the wagons. On short water in the desert Jane admits Billy never annoyed her. Buckskin walks Donald and Merton until heat and thirst make them turn on each other. After an emigrant kills an Indian, the band demands a life. Buckskin names Donald, who runs and is killed. The train gets through. Jane asks him to stay. He goes back to the trail and says he may return.
Cast & crew
More about Wagon Tracks
Lambert Hillyer directed C. Gardner Sullivan's script. Thomas H. Ince and William S. Hart produced for Hart's company. Paramount distributed. Some trade items before release also billed Hart as co-director. Joseph H. August photographed. Thomas Brierly is credited with the production design. The opening title calls it a story of the Santa Fe trail.
Themes
Making
Hart produced and starred, with Hillyer directing and Sullivan writing, the same group behind several of his late-1910s Paramount Westerns. The story is set on the Santa Fe Trail in the Gold Rush year 1850.
Reviews
On release the Los Angeles Times described Wagon Tracks as Hollywood's greatest desert epic.
Look
Joseph H. August photographed the desert wagon train, including the drop of two wagons over a precipice and the waterless march that breaks the gamblers.
Preservation
A print survives and is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- William S. Hart plays Buckskin Hamilton. Jane Novak plays Jane Washburn.
- Robert McKim, Lloyd Bacon, Leo Pierson, and Bert Sprotte are in the cast. Lloyd Bacon later directed.
- Two wagons go over a precipice on the trail.
- The Los Angeles Times, at release, called it Hollywood's greatest desert epic.
- A copy on Wikimedia Commons runs 1 hour 8 minutes 49 seconds. Published listings also give 64 minutes.
Scenes
- Billy Hamilton is shot on the steamboat and Jane is left holding the blame.
- Buckskin forces Donald and Merton to walk in the desert until they accuse each other.
- He names Donald when an Indian band demands a life for a life.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Wagon Tracks (1919) by Lambert Hillyer.webm)
