General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Cheyenne (1947 film)

Cheyenne is a 1947 American Western directed by Raoul Walsh for Warner Bros., starring Dennis Morgan as a gambler coerced into hunting a stagecoach robber known as "the Poet." The film runs 99 minutes in black and white, opened in New York the week of 7 June 1947, and was released nationally on 14 June 1947.¹ After Warner Television launched an unrelated series called Cheyenne in 1955, the film was retitled The Wyoming Kid to avoid confusion.²

Key fact	Detail
Director / producer	Raoul Walsh; produced by Robert Buckner, executive producer Jack L. Warner¹
Cast	Dennis Morgan (James Wylie), Jane Wyman (Ann Kincaid), Janis Paige (Emily Carson), Bruce Bennett (Ed Landers, the Poet), Arthur Kennedy (Sundance Kid)¹
Writers	Screenplay by Alan Le May and Thames Williamson, from a story by Paul I. Wellman¹
Production	Filmed 14 March to late May 1946; exteriors shot in Arizona, substituting for Wyoming¹
Music	Max Steiner, with songs by Steiner and Ted Koehler and by Ted Koehler and M. K. Jerome¹
Later title	Retitled The Wyoming Kid in 1955 when Warner Television used "Cheyenne" for its TV series²
Box office	Warner Bros. records list $2,506,000 domestic and $797,000 foreign earnings³

Spoilers

Plot

The story is set in 1867 in Laramie, Wyoming Territory. Wells Fargo agent Webb Yancey (Barton MacLane) coerces the gambler James Wylie into searching for an outlaw called "the Poet," who has been robbing Wells Fargo shipments and leaving verses at the crime scenes. In return for capturing the Poet, Yancey promises that criminal charges Wylie faces in Nevada will be dropped and that he will earn a reward.¹

On the stagecoach to Cheyenne, Wylie shares a ride with the singer Emily Carson (Janis Paige) and Ann Kincaid (Jane Wyman). The Sundance Kid (Arthur Kennedy) and his gang hold up the stage, furious to find an empty strongbox containing only a poem from the Poet. Wylie follows gang members to their hideout and there pretends to be the Poet himself. Ann goes along with the deception because, as she later explains, she wants the Poet captured as much as Wylie does. Unknown to Wylie, Ann's husband is Ed Landers (Bruce Bennett), a Wells Fargo employee who is the real robber. The plot turns on Ann's growing suspicion that Landers plans to flee with Emily rather than with her; Wylie finally shoots Landers when he attempts to hold up a stage, and Ann later throws the stolen money from the departing stage so that Wylie can claim his reward and ride after her.¹

Production

Casting. Studio press releases announced that Humphrey Bogart was to star and that Zachary Scott had also been assigned a starring role.¹ Walsh had been interested in the story since January 1945, writing to Jack Warner in a memo that he had told Bogart the Cheyenne story and "he wants to do it."⁴ The writer-producer Robert Buckner had also intended the film for Errol Flynn, whose debonair gambler persona suited the part, but Flynn was sailing the world on his yacht the Zaca and made no Westerns in 1946 or 1947; the role went to Dennis Morgan instead.⁵ A TCM account suggests that Morgan, a wartime heartthrob known for musicals, did not measure up as a gunslinger hero.²

Shooting. Production ran from 14 March to late May 1946. Many exterior scenes were shot in Arizona, substituting for Wyoming; TCM identifies the locations as Sedona and Flagstaff, an area that also served Westerns such as Angel and the Badman (1947) and Firecreek (1968).¹^•⁶ A Hollywood Reporter item of 3 May 1946 recorded that John Alvin replaced Clifton Young in the role of "Single Jack" when Young was taken ill.¹

Crew and music. Sid Hickox was director of photography, Christian Nyby the editor, and Ted Smith the art director. Max Steiner wrote the score, and the film's songs were "Going Back to Old Cheyenne," with music and lyrics by Steiner and Ted Koehler, and "I'm So in Love," by Koehler and M. K. Jerome.¹ A reviewer for the blog Mystery File noted that Steiner's score occasionally overwhelms the dialogue.⁷

Reception and assessment

The film earned solidly by Warner Bros. records, $2,506,000 domestically and $797,000 abroad.³ Its critical standing has been lower. The film writer Phil Hardy called it "the least of Raoul Walsh's Westerns," and Walsh himself ignored it in his memoirs.⁵ It followed Walsh's dark psychological Western Pursued by only three months, and its lighter tone is one reason it has been largely forgotten.⁵ Jonathan Lewis, reviewing it for Mystery File, described it as a Western that is also a mystery and a comedy, typical of late 1940s Westerns that do not push the envelope far, and judged Morgan not gritty enough for a Western hero.⁷ A Letterboxd review found the film's tone shifting between playful romance and surprisingly dark, violent action scenes.⁸

Reviewers also noted elements beyond the standard oater. TCM's Glenn Erickson points to a higher level of violence than usual, as when the Sundance Kid callously shoots an adversary lying helpless on the ground, and to Janis Paige's two songs and "startling" cleavage as noted by contemporary reviewers.² Michael E. Grost, a writer on classic film, describes the film as a mix of Western, mystery, and comedy with a gambler hero who anticipates the television series Maverick.⁹

Relationship to the Cheyenne television series

In 1955 Warner Television launched Cheyenne, an ABC Western series starring Clint Walker, and the 1947 film was retitled The Wyoming Kid in syndication to keep the two apart.² Sources differ on how close the connection was. TCM's Stephanie Thames writes that a TV series of the same name was loosely based on the film and ran on ABC from 1955 to 1963.⁶ Jeff Arnold reports that, unlike Warners' Colt .45, Clint Walker's television character bore no resemblance to Dennis Morgan's on the big screen,⁵ and Michael E. Grost states that as far as he can tell the film and the series have nothing in common except their name.¹⁰ Nostalgia Central describes the series as based, rather loosely, on the 1947 movie.¹¹

The film itself returned to circulation through the Warner Archive DVD release, which restored its original title; its earlier television syndication title had been The Wyoming Kid.⁴

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026