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APRIL 14, 2025: THE VIRGINIAN & JOEL MCCREA
Howdy folks, it’s the second week of April 2025 and welcome to This Week in The West.
I’m Seth Spillman, broadcasting from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
On this podcast, we share stories of the people and events that shaped the history, art and culture of the American West—and those still shaping it today.
The Western film genre has a bundle of sayings that have become etched in the movie lore.
“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”
“I’m your huckleberry.”
And, as uttered by Joel McCrea in 1946: ”Smile when you say that.”
Today, we tell the tale of “The Virginian,” the movie and the landmark story behind the quote. McCrea’s version of the film had its world premiere this week 79 years ago, April 17, 1946.
The roots of “The Virginian” begin around the Turn of the Century.
Owen Wister was a restless lawyer in 1884 who began to suffer blinding headaches and vertigo. His doctor successed he take some time away from his home in Philadelphia and travel west. I Starting in 1885, he spent nearly every summer of his life in Wyoming and other parts of the West.
His writing about the West in Harper’s Magazine made him a moderately successful author and he gathered a close group of famous friends. Wister knew novelist Henry James and President Teddy Roosevelt well and, on an 1893 visit to Yellowstone National Park, Wister befriended the western artist Frederic Remington.
In 1901, he began writing his new novel, “The Virginian,” the tale of a nameless cowboy, his adventures on the rough-and-tumble Wyoming frontier and his courtship of the town’s new schoolteacher.
The book was a sensation. In its first year, it had sold more than 200,000 copies. Wister became the nation’s most famous author and the book because a foundational text for creating the archetypes of the Western genre.
Harvard Magazine put it this way: “All the essential characters are to be found there: not only the noble, nameless hero, but also the eastern tenderfoot narrator, the high-spirited, virginal schoolmarm, hostile Indians, cattle rustlers, the shrewd camp cook, the callow kid, the devious, doomed villain.”
A year after the book was published, “The Virginian” got its first stage adaptation, which was another hit.
As Wister’s Western creation became burned into the country’s pop culture consciousness, the fresh medium of motion pictures found it irresistible.
In 1914, director Cecil B. DeMille put “The VIrginian” on screen for the first time. Another silent adaptation followed in 1923.
But that version was quickly overshadowed by a 1929 film which put a young Gary Cooper in his first starring role. It was one of the first successful talking Westerns, helping to transition the genre into a new era of movies.
In 1946 a new version to rival Cooper’s was released, shot in rich Technicolor. The Virginian was filmed in the ranches, valleys and canyons of Suthern California standing in for Wyoming.
At the heart of the movie was Joel McCrea, chosen for his stoic demeanor to play the taciturn main character.
The 1946 retelling is often praised for McCrea’s understated performance, which aligned well with the nature of Wister’s protagonist. Unlike some earlier adaptations, this film placed greater emphasis on the Virginian’s internal struggles, particularly his grappling with the necessity of violence to maintain order.
The portrayal of frontier justice — especially the hanging of an old friend for cattle rustling — remained a pivotal and controversial moment, illustrating the harsh realities of Western life.
Reviews from the day after its debut focused on McCrea. Herbert Cohn of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote: “It was in 1929 that Gary Cooper wwas the gallant hero and did a right nice job of it. McCrea is equally good. His Virginian is patient but tough with his enemy… gentlemanly but dertimed with the lovely young lithesome school marm … and righteously firm with the youthful cow-puncher in his outfit whose steps stray from the straight and narrow..”
George L. David, critic for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York singled out McCrea, writing “McCrea always stamps his roles and scenes with sinceriuty and here he plays with a restraint and a naturalness that give the developments reality.
‘The VIrginian” would go on to finish 24th in the 1946 Box Office, just a little ahead of the 26th most popular film – “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Wister’s story would live on in a 1960s television show and two more film adaptations in 21st Century.
McCrea’s career would continue into the 1970s, as his advocacy for the history and culture of the American West grew in influence.
In 1969, McCrea was named to our Hall of Great Western performers here at The Cowboy. According to a history of our museum, “he was so enthralled with the idea of preserving the concepti of western heritage that he became a member of the board the following year.” He would go onto be the chairman of the board. His grandson Wyatt continues that family presence on our board today.
McCrea passed away in 1990. He was 84.
Owen Wister, who is a member of our Hall of Great Westerners, died in 1938 at age 78.
And with that, we’ll ride off into the sunset on another episode of “This Week in The West.”
Our show is produced by Chase Spivey and written by Mike Koehler
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We leave you today with the words of Joel McCrea: “I always felt so much more comfortable in the Western. The minute I got a horse and a hat and a pair of boots on, I felt easier. I didn’t feel like I was an actor anymore. I felt like I was the guy out there doing it.”
Much obliged for listening, and remember, come Find Your West at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
