Two Rode Together
Encyclopedia
Two Rode Together is a western film directed by John Ford
, and starring James Stewart
, Richard Widmark
, and Shirley Jones
. The supporting cast includes Linda Cristal
, Andy Devine
, and John McIntire
. The movie was based upon the novel Comanche Captives by Will Cook.
) is content to be the business and personal partner of attractive saloon owner Belle Aragon (Annelle Hayes), receiving ten percent of the profits. When relatives of Comanche
captives demand that Army Major Fraser (John McIntire
) free them, he uses a combination of army pressure and high pay to get the reluctant McCabe to take on the job of ransoming any he can find. He assigns Lieutenant Jim Gary (Richard Widmark) to accompany McCabe.
Marty Purcell (Shirley Jones
) is haunted by the memory of her abducted younger brother Steve. She keeps a music box that belonged to him. McCabe warns her that Steve will not remember her because he was a young boy when he was taken years ago. McCabe is also promised a large reward by the wealthy stepfather of another boy.
McCabe bargains with Chief Quanah Parker
(Henry Brandon) and finds four white captives. Two refuse to go back with him. One is a young woman who is married to a Comanche and has children. The other is an old woman who is believed to be dead and regards herself as being as good as dead. There is also a young man named Running Wolf, who McCabe hopes is the lost son of the wealthy family. The fourth is a Mexican woman, Elena de la Madriaga (Linda Cristal
). However, she is the wife of Stone Calf (Woody Strode
), a militant rival of Parker. As they leave the camp, Stone Calf tries to take back his woman and is killed by McCabe, much to Quanah Parker's satisfaction.
Running Wolf makes it very clear that he hates white people and the rich man refuses to accept him. However, a woman is convinced that Running Wolf is her lost son and claims him. Later, when she tries to cut his hair, he kills her. The settlers decide to lynch
the murderer, despite Lieutenant Gary's attempt to stop them. As they drag him away, Running Wolf knocks over Marty's music box. He hears it play and recognizes the melody. Marty cannot save him and is forced to accept that nothing could have been done to bring back the brother she remembered. She accepts Gary's proposal of marriage.
Meanwhile, Elena finds herself ostracized by white society as a woman who degraded herself by submitting to a savage rather than killing herself. She decides to try her luck in California. When McCabe was reported dead, Belle quickly hired a new marshal, causing him to complain, "I didn't get a chance to vote for myself - not even once." However, he has fallen in love with Elena, so he decides to go to California with her.
, who died in 1958. Ford said he admired Cohn like "a large, brilliant serpent." The director hated the material, believing he had done a far better treatment of the theme in The Searchers
. Even after he brought in his most trusted screenwriter Frank Nugent
—the man responsible for The Searchers and nine other Ford classics—to fix the script, the director said it was "still crap."
Nevertheless, he took the project on and proceeded to take out his frustrations on his cast and crew. Not that this was uncharacteristic. Stewart had been warned about the director's behavior by such longtime Ford stalwarts as John Wayne
and Henry Fonda
(who Ford had once socked in the jaw, during the filming of Mister Roberts). Stewart came to learn Ford liked to keep his actors in the dark about the direction of the picture and suspicious of each other. In Andrew Sinclair's biography, John Ford, Stewart revealed that Ford's "direction took the form of asides. Sometimes he'd put his hand across his mouth so that others couldn't hear what he was saying to you. On Two Rode Together he told me to watch out for Dick Widmark because he was a good actor and that he would start stealing if I didn't watch him. Later, I learned he'd told Dick the same thing about me. He liked things to be tense."
One of the film's most renowned and impressive shots has been credited solely to Ford's mean streak. In the famous five-minute two-shot of Stewart and Widmark bantering on a river bank about money, women, and the Comanche problem, the film's downbeat comedy, misogyny, and careless attitude toward human life are summed up perfectly. Ford justified the take as a simple preference for a wide-screen two-shot over cross-cutting between close-ups of "pock-marked faces." But Stewart and others insisted Ford forced his crew to wade waist-deep into the icy river and stay there all day until the shot was completed.
The film was shot on location in Brackettville, Texas
utilizing sets built for John Wayne's production of The Alamo
.
(1962) and Cheyenne Autumn
(1964). They might not have been the best of friends on-and-off the set but they had a grudging respect for each other. The closest Ford ever came to praising Stewart was when he said, "He did a whale of a job manufacturing a character the public went for. He studied acting." Stewart wore the same hat in the film that he had worn in all his westerns with director Anthony Mann
, prompting Ford to remark, "Great, now I have actors with hat approval!". Ford refused to allow Stewart to wear any hat in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, while John Wayne
wore the most flamboyant wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat that he'd worn in film since the 1930s.
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
, and starring James Stewart
James Stewart (actor)
James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
, Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
, and Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
. The supporting cast includes Linda Cristal
Linda Cristal
Linda Cristal is an Argentine actress. She is currently retired....
, Andy Devine
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...
, and John McIntire
John McIntire
John McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...
. The movie was based upon the novel Comanche Captives by Will Cook.
Plot
In the 1880s, Marshal Guthrie McCabe (Jimmy StewartJames Stewart
James Stewart was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart may also refer to:-Noblemen:*James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland*James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn James Stewart (1908–1997) was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart...
) is content to be the business and personal partner of attractive saloon owner Belle Aragon (Annelle Hayes), receiving ten percent of the profits. When relatives of Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...
captives demand that Army Major Fraser (John McIntire
John McIntire
John McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...
) free them, he uses a combination of army pressure and high pay to get the reluctant McCabe to take on the job of ransoming any he can find. He assigns Lieutenant Jim Gary (Richard Widmark) to accompany McCabe.
Marty Purcell (Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
) is haunted by the memory of her abducted younger brother Steve. She keeps a music box that belonged to him. McCabe warns her that Steve will not remember her because he was a young boy when he was taken years ago. McCabe is also promised a large reward by the wealthy stepfather of another boy.
McCabe bargains with Chief Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker
Quanah Parker was a Comanche chief, a leader in the Native American Church, and the last leader of the powerful Quahadi band before they surrendered their battle of the Great Plains and went to a reservation in Indian Territory...
(Henry Brandon) and finds four white captives. Two refuse to go back with him. One is a young woman who is married to a Comanche and has children. The other is an old woman who is believed to be dead and regards herself as being as good as dead. There is also a young man named Running Wolf, who McCabe hopes is the lost son of the wealthy family. The fourth is a Mexican woman, Elena de la Madriaga (Linda Cristal
Linda Cristal
Linda Cristal is an Argentine actress. She is currently retired....
). However, she is the wife of Stone Calf (Woody Strode
Woody Strode
Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
), a militant rival of Parker. As they leave the camp, Stone Calf tries to take back his woman and is killed by McCabe, much to Quanah Parker's satisfaction.
Running Wolf makes it very clear that he hates white people and the rich man refuses to accept him. However, a woman is convinced that Running Wolf is her lost son and claims him. Later, when she tries to cut his hair, he kills her. The settlers decide to lynch
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
the murderer, despite Lieutenant Gary's attempt to stop them. As they drag him away, Running Wolf knocks over Marty's music box. He hears it play and recognizes the melody. Marty cannot save him and is forced to accept that nothing could have been done to bring back the brother she remembered. She accepts Gary's proposal of marriage.
Meanwhile, Elena finds herself ostracized by white society as a woman who degraded herself by submitting to a savage rather than killing herself. She decides to try her luck in California. When McCabe was reported dead, Belle quickly hired a new marshal, causing him to complain, "I didn't get a chance to vote for myself - not even once." However, he has fallen in love with Elena, so he decides to go to California with her.
Cast
- James StewartJames Stewart (actor)James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
as Marshal Guthrie McCabe - Richard WidmarkRichard WidmarkRichard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
as First Lieutenant Jim Gary - Shirley JonesShirley JonesShirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
as Marty Purcell - Linda CristalLinda CristalLinda Cristal is an Argentine actress. She is currently retired....
as Elena de la Madriaga - Andy DevineAndy DevineAndrew Vabre "Andy" Devine was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice.-Early life:...
as Sergeant Darius P. Posey - John McIntireJohn McIntireJohn McIntire was an American character actor.-Career:The craggy-faced film actor was born in Spokane in eastern Washington State but reared in Montana, growing up around ranchers and cowboys, an experience that would later inspire his performances in dozens of westerns.A graduate of USC, McIntire...
as Major Frazer - Paul Birch as Judge Edward Purcell
- Willis Bouchey as Mr. Harry J. Wringle
- Henry Brandon as Chief Quanah Parker. Brandon also played Chief Scar, the husband of a kidnapped white woman, in the 1956 Ford masterpiece The SearchersThe Searchers (film)The Searchers is a 1956 American Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, and set during the Texas–Indian Wars...
. - Harry Carey Jr. as Ortho Clegg
- Olive CareyOlive CareyOlive Carey was an American film and television actress.Born as Olive Fuller Golden in New York City, she appeared in more than fifty films, mostly westerns, including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, often playing tough tom-boy parts. In 1920, she wed actor Harry Carey, Sr., with whom she remained...
as Mrs. Abby Frazer - Ken CurtisKen CurtisKen Curtis was an American singer and actor best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the long-running CBS western television series Gunsmoke.-Early years:...
as Greeley Clegg - Chet Douglas as Deputy Ward Corby
- Annelle HayesAnnelle HayesAnnelle Hayes is a retired minor actress active from mid-1940s to early 1960s. She is the former wife of Mark Stevens and has two children, Mark Richard and Arrelle, with her ex-husband. Her only significant film role was as Belle Aragon in John Ford's Two Rode Together.- External links :...
as Belle Aragon - David Kent as Running Wolf
- Anna LeeAnna LeeAnna Lee, MBE was an English actress.-Career:Lee studied at the Royal Albert Hall, then debuted with a bit part in the film His Lordship...
as Mrs. Malaprop - Jeanette NolanJeanette NolanJeanette Nolan was an American radio, film and television actress. Nolan was nominated for four Emmy Awards.-Early life:...
as Mrs. Mary McCandless - John QualenJohn QualenJohn Qualen was a Canadian-American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles....
as Ole Knudsen - Ford RaineyFord RaineyFord Rainey was an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Rainey was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, the son of Vyrna , a teacher, and Archie Coleman Rainey. Rainey graduated from Centralia Junior College in Washington state and the Cornish Drama School in Seattle. He first acted on...
as Reverend Henry Clegg - Woody StrodeWoody StrodeWoodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
as Stone Calf - O.Z. WhiteheadO.Z. WhiteheadOothout Zabriskie Whitehead was born in New York City and attended Harvard University. Called "O.Z." or "Zebby", he was a stage star and a prominent character actor who also authored several volumes of biographical sketches of early members of the Bahá'í Faith especially in the West after he...
as Lieutenant Chase
Production
The shoot was far from a happy one. This was not a personal project for Ford but something he did only for the money ($225,000 plus 25% of the net profits) and as a favor to Columbia Pictures head Harry CohnHarry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
, who died in 1958. Ford said he admired Cohn like "a large, brilliant serpent." The director hated the material, believing he had done a far better treatment of the theme in The Searchers
The Searchers (film)
The Searchers is a 1956 American Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, and set during the Texas–Indian Wars...
. Even after he brought in his most trusted screenwriter Frank Nugent
Frank Nugent
Frank Stanley Nugent was an American journalist, film reviewer, script doctor, and screenwriter who wrote 21 film scripts, 11 for John Ford...
—the man responsible for The Searchers and nine other Ford classics—to fix the script, the director said it was "still crap."
Nevertheless, he took the project on and proceeded to take out his frustrations on his cast and crew. Not that this was uncharacteristic. Stewart had been warned about the director's behavior by such longtime Ford stalwarts as John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
and Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
(who Ford had once socked in the jaw, during the filming of Mister Roberts). Stewart came to learn Ford liked to keep his actors in the dark about the direction of the picture and suspicious of each other. In Andrew Sinclair's biography, John Ford, Stewart revealed that Ford's "direction took the form of asides. Sometimes he'd put his hand across his mouth so that others couldn't hear what he was saying to you. On Two Rode Together he told me to watch out for Dick Widmark because he was a good actor and that he would start stealing if I didn't watch him. Later, I learned he'd told Dick the same thing about me. He liked things to be tense."
One of the film's most renowned and impressive shots has been credited solely to Ford's mean streak. In the famous five-minute two-shot of Stewart and Widmark bantering on a river bank about money, women, and the Comanche problem, the film's downbeat comedy, misogyny, and careless attitude toward human life are summed up perfectly. Ford justified the take as a simple preference for a wide-screen two-shot over cross-cutting between close-ups of "pock-marked faces." But Stewart and others insisted Ford forced his crew to wade waist-deep into the icy river and stay there all day until the shot was completed.
The film was shot on location in Brackettville, Texas
Brackettville, Texas
Brackettville is a city in Kinney County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,876 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Kinney County...
utilizing sets built for John Wayne's production of The Alamo
The Alamo (1960 film)
The Alamo is a 1960 American historical epic released by United Artists. The film was directed by John Wayne, who also starred as Davy Crockett. The cast also includes Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as William B...
.
Relationship between Ford and Stewart
Although the movie was not a commercial success and Stewart and Ford did not make the best collaborative team, they would work together three more times, two of those in films that took a radically different and even darker view of the western myth: The Man Who Shot Liberty ValanceThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a 1962 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring James Stewart and John Wayne. The black-and-white film was released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck was adapted from a short story written by Dorothy M...
(1962) and Cheyenne Autumn
Cheyenne Autumn
Cheyenne Autumn is a 1964 western starring Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, James Stewart, and Edward G. Robinson. Regarded as an epic film it tells the story of a factual event, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878-9, although it is told in 'Hollywood style' using a great degree of artistic license...
(1964). They might not have been the best of friends on-and-off the set but they had a grudging respect for each other. The closest Ford ever came to praising Stewart was when he said, "He did a whale of a job manufacturing a character the public went for. He studied acting." Stewart wore the same hat in the film that he had worn in all his westerns with director Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...
, prompting Ford to remark, "Great, now I have actors with hat approval!". Ford refused to allow Stewart to wear any hat in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, while John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
wore the most flamboyant wide-brimmed ten-gallon hat that he'd worn in film since the 1930s.