Few actors hold the deep gravitas and presence as the mustachioed Sam Elliott, whose greatest westerns include 1883, Tombstone, and The Quick and the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. However, the famed cowboy actor made his screen debut in the less-than-stellar picture The Way West, a movie starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark that bears a score of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes for good reason.
Before Elliott landed his breakout role in Mask, he appeared 18 years earlier as an uncredited extra in the 1967 film that follows Senator William J. Tadlock (Kirk Douglas) as he travels with a party of settlers from Missouri to Oregon. Though a sprawling epic set on the wild frontier might sound riveting, I can ᴀssure you that’s not the case, as The Way West fails to utilize its talented cast in any meaningful capacity. Although Elliott would go on to make a brief cameo in the far superior Butch Cᴀssidy and the Sundance Kid only two years later, The Way West remains a minor footnote in the famed actor’s decade-spanning career.
Sam Elliott Has A Small Role In Kirk Douglas’ The Way West
It’s Not Even A Blink-And-You-Miss-It Cameo
Sam Elliott’s role in The Way West is so minor that you’ll be hard-pressed to recognize him at all, especially since he’s without the iconic mustache he’s worn for nearly half a century. In the film, a fresh-faced 23-year-old Elliott appears as an uncredited townsman in a Missouri town where Senator Tadlock leaves with Dick Summers (Robert Mitchum) on the trail to Oregon.
Elliott’s brief role in The Way West is yet another reminder that everyone in Hollywood must start somewhere. Although appearing in a movie with cinema legends like Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum would initially look to be a fast track to a promising career, it would take the Gettysburg actor nearly two decades to break through in Hollywood following The Way West. Furthermore, although Elliott was unknown at the time, it’s hard not to view his small role in the film as a missed opportunity, especially when looking at his future performances in westerns like Rough Riders and The Hi-Lo Country.
The Way West Was A Disappointment
The Film Fails To Deliver On Its Source Material
Although it boasts an absolute all-star cast, The Way West was both a critical and commercial failure upon its release in the late ’60s. Based on A.B. Guthrie Jr.’s novel of the same name, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1950, The Way West falls short of properly translating the book’s grandiose narrative, instead presenting a disjointed collection of plot points that succeed in inducing boredom but struggle to enthrall or captivate.
The Way West features a young Sally Field in the prominent role of Mercy McBee.
One of the main drivers of conflict in The Way West is the megalomania Senator Tadlock exhibits against the party members. What could’ve been an excellent opportunity to mold Tadlock into a sort of cult-of-personality type in the vein of Colonel Kurtz is wasted in favor of a volatile tyrant driven by ego over morality. Furthermore, the film struggles to fully develop many of its main points, including the rushed conflict between the settlers and the Lakota Sioux tribe after the chief’s son is murdered.
The Way West Is Probably Sam Elliott’s Worst Western Movie
Everyone Needs To Start Somewhere
When you consider the sheer cinematic gold present in some of Elliott’s best movies, his brief debut in The Way West appears all the more underwhelming in contrast, and might truly be the worst entry in his filmography. Unlike the nuanced, gripping characters Elliott plays in films like The Hero and Tombstone, his appearance in The Way West fails to conjure even an iota of pathos due to its fleeting nature, which is only made further hollow when you consider the rushed and underdeveloped characters that make up the film’s surrounding ensemble.
Although it’s understood that actors in the film industry tend to start in small, inconsequential roles, it’s no exaggeration to ᴀssert that The Way West could’ve greatly benefited from Sam Elliott’s magnetic screen presence, even if The Big Lebowski actor wasn’t as refined of a performer as he was in his later career. At the very least, his presence in the frontier epic cemented his place in the western and made way for a long, prosperous career in the genre – despite the rocky start.
