Mrs Johnson
Montana Lit
21 February 2014
The Way West Its 1967, Guthrie is at it again with his new western genre movie, “The Way West.” The Way West is set in the 1840’s and being 47 years old it is very different, but yet holds similarities to contemporary western movies. The scene where Mercy, played by Sally Field, throws herself onto Johnny Mack, played by Michael Witney, reminds me of every western movie I have ever seen, where someone always commits adultery. There are many hardships in The Way West, and a seemingly non-Cliché cast. All the members of the wagon train are not your usual clean, rough and tumble cowboys, who are seemingly invincible no matter the task at hand. As Roger Ebert puts it “They were marginal farmers, bankrupt businessman, religious zealots, parolees, visionaries, con men, and of course heroic frontier types.” Which is a very different and somewhat refreshing way to go about a western movie; however, there is still plenty of predictable moments and characters. Mr. Tadlock for example, the self proclaimed leader of the wagon train and the soon to be leader of the new settlement they are creating, believes the journey is a one man show, in which he will be that one man. He soon realizes after seeing all the death and sorrow he has caused people, that he was wrong. In a matter of a couple of hours he changes his ways, and tries his hardest to be a companion rather than a dictator. This only leads to his certain and untimely death by Mrs. Mack, the newly widowed settler who had it out for Tadlock since he had ordered her husband’s hanging because he mistakenly killed the Sioux chief’s son. When what really should have happened was the hanging of Mercy. It was Mercy who slept with Mr. Mack causing him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though The Way West seems to have gone in a different direction than most, I still couldn’t go on without talking about a popular cliché, Mercy Mcbee. Mercy is a seemingly nice young girl at first. Though we soon realize she has a thing for