Owen Wister

In the thousands of miles of rugged rangeland around Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the only law that rules is the law of the gun. A man has to have an iron jaw and a fast trigger to stay alive. And no one is tougher than the ranch foreman known only as the Virginian. A peaceable man by nature, slow to anger and soft-spoken, fair and just, nonetheless he brooks nonsense from no man. Once wronged, he is a judge with a gavel forged of cold steel. Frontier justice...

The Virginian is the quiet, noble foreman of a Wyoming cattle ranch in the 1870s. More comfortable keeping company with his trusted horse than with other people, he nevertheless falls for pretty schoolteacher Molly Wood, who helps him develop an appreciation for Shakespeare, Keats, and the finer things. But when a rival suitor challenges his honor, the Virginian struggles to make his beloved Molly understand the harsh justice of the West.

Joel McCrea stars as a local ranch hand who risks losing his best friend and the woman he loves when forced into a showdown with ruthless cattle thieves.