Westerns and Religion Archives - Great Western Movies

Westerns and Religion

From at least the 1910s, a common theme in western movies has been the outlaw or gunman whose life is turned around by religion and the love of a good woman (see William S. Hart in Hell’s Hinges, 1916, for example). In the age of populist directors like Frank Capra and John Ford (the 1930s and 1940s), religion—specifically Protestant Christianity, but also Catholicism—was seen as a constructive and regular part of the American consensus. A religious community was usually a civilizing influence, often with a significant dose of sentimentality. Sometimes that religion and its role in American life was central to the story of a western, as in 3 Godfathers, Angel and the Badman and Stars in My Crown (all very good movies). When Gregory Peck found that his quest for revenge had been misdirected in The Bravados, he sought and found solace by talking with a priest.

Moving into the 1960s, there was increasing disillusionment with many American institutions, such as the military, government and big business, and some of that rubbed off on churches as well. Religion seemed less comfortable and less a significant part of regular life, and religious figures started to be more often fanatical than helpful or genuinely good. Priests were more frequently depicted as ineffectual, fallen or corrupt. By the revisionist 1970s, religion as a constructive force had disappeared almost entirely from westerns. That trend in part makes the 1999 made-for-television Purgatory kind of a remarkable throwback in its use of religious themes.

Specific religious groups can play interesting roles in westerns. An obvious example is Quaker pacifism pitted against conventional western violence and guns, as in Angel and the Badman, High Noon and Friendly Persuasion. Mormons were a part of the history of the west, both in their migration westward and in the Salt Lake City-based empire they built in Utah and surrounding states. Fictional Mormons in the west had been prominent as villains in A. Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet (published in 1887), and in Zane Grey’s first best-seller Riders of the Purple Sage (1912). Beginning in the 1920s, Mormons were more likely to be seen as genuinely religious people and more part of the mainstream of history. In California and the southwest, as well as in Mexico, the Catholic church and missions played a significant role historically and in many movies (see Colorado Territory and Strange Lady in Town, for example, not to mention such arguable non-westerns as Black Robe and The Mission).

Sometimes, as in Cowboys & Aliens, both the Christian and the overtly non-religious otherworldly co-exist in the same film. For more outrageous directions in use of the supernatural in westerns, see our post on Supernatural Westerns.

A Sentimental Christianity

Hell’s Hinges (1916): When the corrupt town of Hell’s Hinges kills the new reverend, gunman Blaze Tracy (William S. Hart), under the influence of the reverend’s sister Faith, reforms the town with his guns.

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937): This telling of Bret Harte’s story of gold rush California features Van Heflin as a preacher in a saloon.

Bad Bascomb (1946): Outlaw Wallace Beery falls in with Mormons and turns over a new leaf under the influence of charming child Margaret O’Brien and her grandmother Marjorie Main.

Heaven Only Knows (1947): Also released as Montana Mike, this is a religious fantasy in which an angel (Robert Cummings) comes to earth to save saloon owner Brian Donlevy.

Angel and the Badman (1947): Gunman John Wayne is redeemed by his love for Quaker maiden Gail Russell.

3 Godfathers (1948): Three outlaws in the desert rescue and sacrifice for a newborn baby. The survivor (John Wayne) is redeemed by that sacrifice on Christmas Day.

Four Faces West (1948): A bank robber (Joel McCrea) trying to go straight saves a Mexican family with diphtheria and is himself saved by a good nurse and a sympathetic lawman.

Stars in My Crown (1950): Preacher and Civil War veteran Joel McCrea preaches in a saloon and fights disease and bigotry in Tennessee.

Count Three and Pray (1955): Reformed brawler and womanizer Van Heflin returns from the Civil War and struggles to find acceptance and his way as a preacher.

Strange Lady in Town (1955): The saintly local Catholic priest (Walter Hampden) maintains a clinic for the poor, at which competing local doctors volunteer, until he is unintentionally killed near the end of the movie.

The Searchers (1956): Texas ranger captain and Indian fighter Ward Bond is also the local reverend.

Friendly Persuasion (1956): Husband and wife Quakers (Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire) pit their pacifist principles against the violence around them in Civil War Indiana.

Jubal (1956): Glenn Ford’s Jubal is saved by a Quaker-like group of emigrants to whom he had been kind.

The Bravados (1958): When he finds that his quest for revenge for the murder of his wife has been misdirected, Gregory Peck seeks spiritual advice from a Catholic priest and from Joan Collins.

Heaven with a Gun (1969): Ex-con Jim Killian (Glenn Ford) maintains order in his church and defends the helpless with his guns.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970): Prostitute Shirley MacLaine masquerades as a nun while working south of the border with Clint Eastwood.

Pale Rider (1985): Preacher Clint Eastwood finds himself among beleaguered homesteaders battling mining interests, and reverts to his gunfighting past.

Purgatory (MfTV, 1999): An outlaw gang finds itself in a curiously religious town which is reluctant to defend itself.

The Outsider (MfTV, 2002): Wounded gunman Tim Daly is doctored by Quaker-ish widow Naomi Watts; this time the gunman convinces the woman to leave the religion.

The Missing (2003). Traditional Christianity in the person of healer Cate Blanchett collides with the Indian animism espoused by her father Tommy Lee Jones, with ambiguous results.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011). The local preacher doctors Daniel Craig’s wounded body and spirit before they both ride off to fight aliens.

Forsaken (2015). Gunman John Henry Clayton (Kiefer Sutherland), long estranged from his father, Rev. John Clayton (Donald Sutherland), finally returns to his hometown in Wyoming to seek rapprochement after his mother’s death. However, the railroad is coming to town, and Brian Cox is trying to take over all the land. The now-reformed killer will have to choose his path ahead.

The Magnificent Seven (2016). As Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington) and the rest of the seven defend a California mining town under assault by the forces of a mining baron, a subtext is the role of religion in the community and the rejection of/contempt for religion by the bad guy.

Robert Mitchum as the Rev. Jonathan Rudd in Five Card Stud. Note the gun on top of the bible.

Priests, Fallen and Otherwise

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (Van Heflin, 1937)

Heaven Only Knows (John Litel, 1947)
Stars in My Crown (Joel McCrea, 1950)
Count Three and Pray (Van Heflin, 1955)
Strange Lady in Town (Walter Hampden, 1955)
The Searchers (Ward Bond, 1956)
Stranger at My Door (Macdonald Carey, 1956)
The Ride Back (Victor Millan, 1957)

The Hired Gun (Chuck Connors, 1957)
The Bravados (Andrew Duggan, 1958)
The Outrage (William Shatner, 1964)
Major Dundee (R.G. Armstong, 1965)
The Way West (Jack Elam, 1967)
Guns for San Sebastian (Sam Jaffe and Anthony Quinn, 1968)
Will Penny (Donald Pleasance, 1968)
Five Card Stud (Robert Mitchum, 1968)
Heaven with a Gun (Glenn Ford, 1969)
The Desperados (Jack Palance, 1969)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (David Warner, 1970)
Buck and the Preacher (Harry Belafonte, 1972)
The Wrath of God (Robert Mitchum, 1972)
God’s Gun (Lee Van Cleef, 1976)
The Frisco Kid (Rabbi Gene Wilder, 1979)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
Red Headed Stranger (Willie Nelson, 1986)
The Quick and the Dead (Russell Crowe, 1995)
Riders of the Purple Sage (G.D. Spradlin, MfTV, 1996)
The Outsider (Keith Carradine, MfTV, 2002)

Avenging Angel (Kevin Sorbo, MfTV, 2007)
Cowboys & Aliens (Clancy Brown, 2011)
Klondike (Sam Shepard, MfTV, 2014)

Forsaken (Donald Sutherland, 2016)

The Duel (Woody Harrelson, 2016)

The Magnificent Seven (Mark Ashworth, 2016)

In a Valley of Violence (Burn Gorman, 2016)

Gary Cooper with two Quaker wives: with Grace Kelly in High Noon, and with Dorothy McGuire in Friendly Persuasion.

Quakers (and Quaker-like Groups) in the West

Angel and the Badman (Gail Russell, 1947)
High Noon (Grace Kelly, 1952)
The Iron Mistress (George Voskovec as Audubon, 1952)
Friendly Persuasion (Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire, 1956)
Jubal (Felicia Farr et al., 1956)
Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (Randolph Scott and James Garner as fake Quakers, 1957)
The Proud Rebel (Cecil Kellaway, 1958)
Cheyenne Autumn (Carroll Baker, 1964)
The Outsider (Naomi Watts et al., MfTV 2002)

Charlton Heston as Brigham Young instructs Tom Berenger in The Avenging Angel.

Mormons and Brigham Young:

Riders of the Purple Sage: Most versions before the 1996 made-for-television film featured Mormons as the bad guys, as in Zane Grey’s 1912 novel. The 1996 re-telling is carefully non-denominational.
Brigham Young–Dean Jagger, Vincent Price, Tyrone Power (1940; Dir: Henry Hathaway)
Bad Bascomb—Wallace Beery, Margaret O’Brien (1946)
Wagon Master—Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Joanne Dru, Ward Bond, Jane Darwell (1950; Dir: John Ford)
The Big Gundown—Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian (1966; Dir: Sergio Soliima)
Brigham—Maurice Grandmaison, Richard Moll (1977; Dir: Tom McGowen)
Savage Journey—Maurice Grandmaison, Richard Moll (MfTV, 1983; Dir: Tom McGowen)
The Avenging Angel—Tom Berenger, Charlton Heston, Kevin Tighe, James Coburn (MfTV 1995; Dir: Craig R. Baxley)
September Dawn—Terence Stamp, Trent Ford, Lolita Davidovitch, John Voight, Dean Cain (2007; Dir: Christopher Cain)

The vengeful Rev. Dahlstrom (R.G. Armstrong) meets his end in Major Dundee.

Religious Fanatics

Santa Fe Trail (Raymond Massey as John Brown, 1940)
Dawn at Socorro (Forrest Taylor, 1954)
The Hanging Tree (George C. Scott, 1959)
Ride the High Country (R.G. Armstrong, 1962)
Major Dundee (R.G. Armstrong, 1965)
Will Penny (Donald Pleasance, 1968)
Sweetwater (Jason Isaacs, 2013)

The Duel (Woody Harrelson, 2016)

Nuns in the West

Two Mules for Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine, 1970)
Madron (Leslie Caron, 1970)

September Gun (Patty Duke Astin, 1983)

Sanctified (Tiffany Creswell, 2023)

Clint Eastwood as The Preacher in Pale Rider.

Preachers with Guns

Stars in My Crown (Joel McCrea, 1950)
Count Three and Pray (Van Heflin, 1955)
The Searchers (Ward Bond, 1956)
Guns for San Sebastian (Anthony Quinn, 1968)
Five Card Stud (Robert Mitchum, 1968)
Heaven with a Gun (Glenn Ford, 1969)
Buck and the Preacher (Harry Belafonte, 1972)
The Wrath of God (Robert Mitchum, 1972)
God’s Gun (Lee Van Cleef, 1976)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)

The Quick and the Dead (Russell Crowe, 1995)
Cowboys & Aliens (Clancy Brown, 2011)

In a Valley of Violence (Burn Gorman, 2016)

Robert Mitchum as Father Van Horne in The Wrath of God. The Thompson submachine gun is not a typical armament for a western. Poster art by Frank McCarthy.

Guns in Bibles

Santa Fe Trail (1940)

The Hired Gun (1957)
Cat Ballou (1965)
Five Card Stud (1968)
Buck and the Preacher (1972)

Lonesome Dove Church (2014)

Sermons in Saloons

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937)

Stars in My Crown (1950)
The Deadly Companions (1961)

Blaze Tracy (William S. Hart) romances the Reverends’s sister Faith Henley (Clara Williams) in Hell’s Hinges.

Symbolic Women Named Faith

Hell’s Hinges (Clara Williams, 1916)
Stars in My Crown (Amanda Blake, 1950)

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Stars In My Crown—Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell, Lewis Stone, James Mitchell, Juano Hernandez, Charles Kemper, Arthur Hunnicutt (1950; Dir: Jacques Tourneur)

This is a slice-of-small-town-Americana film, with a dose of traditional religion thrown in, as one might guess from the title, which is also the title of an old-time hymn. Josiah Dozier Gray (Joel McCrea in his most overtly decent moral-guy mode) is a Civil War veteran and a preacher in Walesburg, Tennessee, a town that is afflicted by lack of a church, and subsequently by typhoid, racial bigotry and a young doctor who doesn’t believe in God. When Gray first shows up in town, he gives his first sermon in a saloon, using his guns to quiet the unruly non-church-going crowd. The town builds a church, and Josiah settles in and marries Harriet (Ellen Drew). They take in her orphaned nephew John Kenyon (Dean Stockwell) to raise, and from time to time it’s John’s adult voice that narrates the film (with the voice of Marshall Thompson).

Preaching in the saloon.

Life happens in Walesburg. Beloved and crusty old Doc Harris (Lewis Stone) dies, and his place is taken by his son young Doc Harris (James Mitchell), who believes in science, not religion. He doesn’t fit in well and wants to move to a larger city, but he also wants to marry the school teacher Faith Radmore Samuels (Amanda Blake, with a symbolically named character). Faith doesn’t want to leave Walesburg and postpones responding to young Doc’s proposal of marriage.

John comes down with typhoid, and young Doc warns Josiah to stay away from people to avoid passing on the contagion. He doesn’t listen, and the disease spreads. John recovers, but it looks like teacher Faith won’t. Josiah feels guilty that he didn’t do what Doc said, even though they both know the disease is water-borne, and he withdraws from the town and from his preaching, questioning his faith and his role in the community. When Faith is dying (both literally and figuratively), young Doc sends at last for Josiah. When she doesn’t die, Josiah and young Doc are reconciled; young Doc Harris has regained his Faith, and Josiah regains his faith as well. John figures out that it was the schoolhouse well that spread the disease, and Josiah is vindicated.

Uncle Famous (Juano Hernandez) at his cabin after the place has been trashed; Gray faces down the nightriders armed with only his moral authority and his wits.

An old black former slave, Uncle Famous Prill (Juano Hernandez), is targeted by white-sheeted night riders, who plan to hang him when he won’t leave. The old Josiah would have used his guns, but now he faces down the night riders armed only with his moral authority and a little guile. The Isbell family, led by patriarch (and old war friend of Gray) Jed Isbell (Alan Hale, Sr.) with several sons, backs him up, silently and unknown to Josiah, with guns. But they too, even as non-church-goers, are impressed with the parson’s moral authority. As the movie ends, the entire Isbell clan shows up at church at last.

In one of the movie’s better lines, after Gray has read Uncle Famous’ will to the nightriders and shamed them into leaving, the two-page document falls to the ground, and John picks it up. Seeing two blank pieces of paper, he says, “There’s no will here!” “Sure there is, son,” responds Josiah. “It’s the will of God.” Not everybody could make that work, but McCrea handles its weight effortlessly with a mix of natural authority and humor.

By the end of the movie all has been conquered (including the preacher’s own doubts in himself), and the preacher and the young doctor have come to a certain appreciation of each other. Joel McCrea is perfectly cast as parson Josiah Dozier Gray, and he said on at least one occasion that this was his personal favorite among his movies. And in a long career, he was in some very good ones, working with such directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, George Stevens, Cecil B. DeMille and Sam Peckinpah. Ellen Drew is good as his supportive wife, and Dean Stockwell was at his peak as a child actor. Stockwell and McCrea would appear together again in Cattle Drive (1951) the next year. The supporting cast is very strong, with some very good character actors—Alan Hale, Arthur Hunnicutt, Juano Hernandez, Charles Kemper (as Professor Sam Houston Jones, a genial medicine show proprietor), and Ed Begley. Perhaps the weakest performance is by James Mitchell as young Doc Harris, and he’s not bad.

The preacher and his family: McCrea, Stockwell and Drew.

The pacing in the film is slightly leisurely at only 89 minutes, but it matches well with the subject matter, giving relationships and issues time to develop. If anything, it could be a bit longer. French director Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past, perhaps the greatest film noir ever made, and the gothic classic Cat People) was at the peak of his game. He and McCrea would make a couple more westerns together, although they’re not as good as this one: Stranger on Horseback (1955, with McCrea as a circuit-riding judge) and Wichita (also 1955, with McCrea as Wyatt Earp). As with McCrea, this was said to be Tourneur’s favorite of all his films. The titular hymn “Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?” works well in this film, as do “Beulah Land” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” near the end. It’s good to hear those instead of the over-used “Shall We Gather at the River” (John Ford’s favorite for such films) although there are some strains of that one, too. It’s based on a novel by Joe David Brown, shot in black and white. It’s an underappreciated gem in its quiet way, a forerunner of such more celebrated films as To Kill a Mockingbird.

The film was respectably profitable in its time although not a blockbuster, making about $225,000 in profit. By some definitions, this may not actually be a western, since there are no Indians and the town seems somewhat established if not large. Much of Tennessee was rural, but not exactly western after the Civil War. But it has Joel McCrea, guns and cowboy hats in the 19th century. This was apparently Alan Hale’s last movie. James Arness (uncredited, as the oldest of the Isbell sons) and Amanda Blake, yet to star in television’s Gunsmoke, are bit players in this one. It has been available in remastered form on DVD since 2011.

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