The Virginian (Victor Fleming, 1929)

Mary Brian and Gary Cooper in The Virginian (Victor Fleming, 1929)

Cast: Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, Mary Brian, Richard Arlen, Helen Ware, Chester Conklin, Eugene Pallette, Victor Potel, E.H. Calvert. Screenplay: Howard Estabrook, Grover Jones, Keene Thompson, Edward E. Paramore Jr., based on a novel by Owen Wister and the play adapted from it by Wister and Keene Thompson. Cinematography: J. Roy Hunt, Edward Cronjager. Film editing: William Shea. Music: Karl Hajos.

This early talkie is most famous for the response of the Virginian (Gary Cooper) to an insult from Trampas (Walter Huston): "If you wanna call me that, smile," and for the crisis that comes when the Virginian (the only name by which he is known, at least in the film) is forced to hang his best friend, Steve (Richard Arlen), who falls in with Trampas's gang of cattle rustlers. But much of it is taken up with the on-again, off-again romance of the Virginian and the new shoolmarm, Molly (Mary Brian). Owen Wister's 1901 novel and subsequent stage play were so popular that it had been filmed twice as a silent, and this version established Cooper as a major star and a Western icon. It also spawned a 1960s TV series.