Cattle Drive

{{Infobox film

| name = Cattle Drive

| image = Cattle Drive FilmPoster.jpeg

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Kurt Neumann

| producer = Aaron Rosenberg

| writer = Lillie Hayward
Jack Natteford

| starring = Joel McCrea
Dean Stockwell
Chill Wills
Leon Ames
Bob Steele

| cinematography = Maury Gertsman

| editing = Danny B. Landres

| color_process = Technicolor

| studio = Universal International Pictures

| distributor = Universal Pictures

| released = {{Film date|1951|08|01|}}

| runtime = 77 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

}}

Cattle Drive is a 1951 American Western film directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Joel McCrea, Dean Stockwell and Chill Wills. Much of the film was shot in the Death Valley National Park, California and Paria, Utah.

Plot

Chester Graham Jr. (Dean Stockwell), the spoiled young son of a wealthy railroad owner, gets lost in the middle of nowhere when he wanders away from a train during a water stop. He is found by a cowboy (Joel McCrea) who is part of a cattle drive. Lucky to be alive, the boy has to tag along with the cowboys. He learns the value of hard work, self-discipline and comradeship while working with the men on the trail to Santa Fe.

Influences

The basic story—about a rich brat who gets lost in a dangerous place far from home, then learns character and values from the working men who rescue him—echoes that of 1937's Oscar-winning film Captains Courageous, adapted from a novel by Rudyard Kipling.{{cite book|author=Hanfling, Barrie|title=Westerns and the Trail of Tradition: A Year-by-Year History, 1929-1962|publisher=McFarland|location=Jefferson, NC|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Opg-CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA181|year=2016|isbn=978-0-7864-4500-4|page=181|access-date=2020-03-19}} The key difference, besides the fact that the leading man does not get killed in the end, is that "Cattle Drive" is set in a desert area and not at sea.

A variation of the same plot was also used in [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0683097/?ref_=ttep_ep5 Season 5, Episode 5 of Rawhide, Incident of the Prodigal Son] and in [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0740936/?ref_=ttep_ep7 Season 3, Episode 7 of The Virginian, Big Image... Little Man.]

Cast

Joel McCrea as Dan Matthews
Dean Stockwell as Chester Graham Jr.
Chill Wills as Dallas
Leon Ames as Chester Graham Sr.
Henry Brandon as Jim Currie
Howard Petrie as Cap
Bob Steele as Charlie "Careless" Morgan
Griff Barnett as Conductor O'Hara

Production

Parts of the film were shot in Paria, Utah, and Death Valley.{{cite book|last1=D'Arc|first1=James V.|title=When Hollywood came to town: a history of moviemaking in Utah|date=2010|publisher=Gibbs Smith|location=Layton, Utah|isbn=9781423605874|edition=1st}}