The Far Country (1954)
The fourth western director Mann made with his favourite actor James Stewart, following The Naked Spur , followed by The Man from Laramie . The film has a fairly unique setting on the North-Western frontier, during the times of the Klondike Gold Rush (1896-1899). Stewart is Jeff Webster a farmer from Wyoming who has heard that the discovery of gold has attracted large numbers of prospectors to the Yukon. He therefore plans to drive a herd of cattle to the nascent settlement of Dawson, hoping to sell their meat for a good price to the prospectors. All seems to go well until his herd is confiscated during a bogus trial by a man called Gannon, the self-styled judge of the border town of Skagway. Jeff is hired by saloon owner and business woman Ronda Castle (Ruth Roman) to lead a caravan to Dawson, but he also steals his herd back from Gannon, who swears that he will hang Jeff as soon as he sets foot on American soil again… Stewart usually played obsessive characters in Mann’s movies
