Wagonmaster

A 45 has been the undoing of many a man, but it apparently takes a hillbilly quartet to beat John Ford to the draw.

Mr. Ford's latest western is effectively washed out by that quartet, a group of unseen and saccharine voices which intrude on the sound track whenever dialogue lags. This intrusion is frequent; what makes it so intensely annoying is that all the songs are more or less reworkings of "Ghost Riders in the Sky," and singularly well-adapted to wrecking the plausibility of the movie.

Plausibility is the key to a western, as Mr. Ford well knows: what makes "Wagonmaster" especially unfortunate is that it shows all the craftsmanship of a fine one. Ford's feel for detail and character is excellent. He creates a traveling pitchman who runs out of water in the desert, and is found dead drunk after two days of guzzling Magic Elixir to alleviate his thirst. There is a Charles Addams-type family of half-witted bandits, and a wagon train of Mormon emigrants inspired by frequent bleats on a ram's horn. But Ford fails to weld these details together with much of a plot, and relies on the second rate songs of his cowboy chorus to fill in the gaps. When Mr. Ford, like the little girl, is good he is very very good, but in "Wagonmaster" he is horrid.