''Cattle Drive'' is a 1951 American

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film directed by Kurt Neumann and starring

Joel McCrea Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he bec ...

Dean Stockwell Robert Dean Stockwell (March 5, 1936 – November 7, 2021) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including ''Anchors A ...

and Chill Wills. Much of the film was shot in the Death Valley National Park,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and Paria,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

Plot

Chester Graham Jr. (

), the spoiled young son of a wealthy railroad owner, gets lost in the middle of nowhere when he wanders away from a train during a water stop. He is found by a cowboy (

) who is part of a cattle drive. Lucky to be alive, the boy has to tag along with the cowboys. He learns the value of hard work, self-discipline and comradeship while working with the men on the trail to Santa Fe.

Influences

The basic story—about a rich brat who gets lost in a dangerous place far from home, then learns character and values from the working men who rescue him—echoes that of 1937's Oscar-winning film ''Captains Courageous'', adapted from a novel by

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

. The key difference, besides the fact that the leading man does not get killed in the end, is that "Cattle Drive" is set in a desert area and not at sea. A variation of the same plot was also used i
Season 5, Episode 5 of Rawhide, Incident of the Prodigal Son
and i
Season 3, Episode 7 of The Virginian, Big Image... Little Man.

Cast

as Dan Matthews *

as Chester Graham Jr. * Chill Wills as Dallas *

Leon Ames Leon Ames (born Harry L. Wycoff;U.S. Federal Census for 1910 for Fowler, Center Township, Benton County, State of Indiana, access via Ancestry.com January 20, 1902 – October 12, 1993) was an American film and television actor. He is best rememb ...

as Chester Graham Sr. * Henry Brandon as Jim Currie *

Howard Petrie Howard Alexander Petrie (November 22, 1906 – March 24, 1968) was an American radio, television, and film actor. Early life Howard Petrie was born in Beverly, Massachusetts on November 22, 1906. When Howard was three years old his family ...

as Cap * Bob Steele as Charlie "Careless" Morgan *

Griff Barnett Griff Barnett (born Manley Griffith, November 12, 1884 – January 12, 1958) was an American actor.(17 January 1958) ''The New York Times'' Barnett was born in Blue Ridge, Texas in 1884. In the early 20th century, Barnett was a member of the ...

as Conductor O'Hara

Production

Parts of the film were shot in

Paria, Utah Paria or Pahreah (, rhymes with "Maria"), is a ghost town on the Paria River in Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in central Kane County, Utah, United States. It was inhabited from 1870 to 1929, and later used as a filming location. ...

, and

Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the ...

References

External links