70 Films & TV Shows Set In North America During The 1850s
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Jeremiah Johnson
Colorado The 1850sHis Mountain. His Peace. His Great Hunts. His Young Bride. With All That, It Should Have Been Different. — A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier.
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Skin Game
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1850sWould you buy a used slave from this man ? — Quincy Drew and Jason O’Rourke, a pair of friends and con men—the former white, the latter a Northern-born free Black man— travel from town to town in the pre–Civil War American West. In their scam, Quincy sells Jason into slavery, frees him, and the two move on to the next town of suckers . . . until a con gone wrong leads Jason into real danger.
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Little Big Man
Montana South Dakota Oklahoma The 1970s The 1850s The 1870s The 1860sEither the most neglected hero in history or a liar of insane proportion! — Jack Crabb, looking back from extreme old age, tells of his life being raised by Indians and fighting with General Custer.
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Paint Your Wagon
California The 1850sStake Your Claim To The Musical Goldmine of '69! — A Michigan farmer and a prospector form a partnership in the California gold country. Their adventures include buying and sharing a wife, hijacking a stage, kidnapping six prostitutes, and turning their mining camp into a boom town. Along the way there is plenty of drinking, gambling, and singing. They even find time to do some creative gold mining.
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Slaves
Kentucky The 1850sThe tamings...The desires...The furies...of the Old South! — A Kentucky slave fights for his freedom from cruel overseer whose mistress eventually joins Davis and the other slaves in their revolt.
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How the West Was Won
California The 1850s The 1880s The 1860s The 1830sIt's here! The mightiest adventure ever filmed! — The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
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All Mine to Give
Wisconsin The 1850sSIX KIDS ON A TRUE AND WONDERFUL ADVENTURE! — This is a story based on fact that follows a husband and wife who emigrate from Scotland to Wisconsin in the 1850s. They work very hard and become welcome citizens of their new town, Eureka. They have six children. They prosper in the husband's boat-building business. But when their eldest is 12, tragedy strikes the family, and the 12-year-old is burdened with a terrible task which he handles as well as any adult could.
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Cry of the Bewitched
🇨🇺 Cuba The 1850sA freed slave, who is descended from a murdered witch, plots revenge with her grandmother on a sugar plantation's inhabitants. Complications ensue due to her love for the master of the estate.
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Seven Angry Men
Kansas Virginia The 1850sViolent as the Life They Lived! — Director Charles Marquis Warren's 1955 period drama about abolitionist John Brown's crusade to free the slaves stars Raymond Massey, Jeffrey Hunter, Debra Paget, Larry Pennell, Leo Gordon, James Best, John Smith, Dennis Weaver, James Edwards, Guy Williams, James Anderson, Dabbs Greer, Robert "Smoki" Whitfield and Tom Irish.
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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Oregon The 1850sSINGIN'! DANCIN'! ROMANCIN'! — In 1850 Oregon, when a backwoodsman brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that they want to get married too.
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All the Brothers Were Valiant
Massachusetts The 1850sMGM's Great Technicolor Romance! — In the South Pacific islands, two brothers, one good and one bad, fight over the same girl and over a bag of pearls.
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Conquest of Cochise
Arizona The 1850sTorch and tomahawk! — A cavalry officer tries to keep a lid on a volatile situation when Indian leader Cochise is being prodded into starting a war.
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The World in His Arms
California Alaska The 1850sA boisterous sea captain in the Pacific Coast, circa 1850, has a plan to buy Alaska from the Russians… if they don’t kill him first.
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The San Francisco Story
California The 1850sBetween the Sea and the Sierras Stood the Sin-Strewn Gateway to Gold! — After five years of being away, Rick Nelson (Joel McCrea) returns to San Francisco to find it filled with corruption - and crooked politicians. It isn't until he meets a beautiful San Franciscan (Yvonne De Carlo), that Nelson decides to get involved with bringing law-and-order to the city by the bay!
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Westward the Women
California Illinois Missouri The 1850sThe BIG MGM Spectacle ! HE LED 200 WOMEN ON AN ADVENTURE THAT MOST MEN FEARED TO FACE! — In a time when "The West" pretty much ends in Texas and only California is slowly being populated by the white men, there's a severe lack of women among the workers on Roy Whitman's farm in the California Valley. So he goes back east to Chicago to recruit 150 women willing to become wives for his employees. From the candidates he selects 138 who seem able to survive a months long journey across "The Great American Desert" and the Rocky Mountains. Written by Tom Zoerner
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Red River
Texas The 1860s The 1850sBig as the Men Who Faced This Challenge! Bold as the Women Who Loved Them! — Headstrong Thomas Dunson starts a thriving Texas cattle ranch with the help of his faithful trail hand, Groot, and his protégé, Matthew Garth, an orphan Dunson took under his wing when Matt was a boy. In need of money following the Civil War, Dunson and Matt lead a cattle drive to Missouri, where they will get a better price than locally, but the crotchety older man and his willful young partner begin to butt heads on the exhausting journey.
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Best Man Wins
Missouri The 1850sBased on The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras, by Mark Twain. — Jim Smiley has a frog that can jump further than anyone else's frog, and Jim becomes obsessed with entering the frog in all of the local jumping-frog contests, not realizing that his obsession is about to cost him his marriage.
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Heaven Only Knows
Montana The 1850s The 1880sFor an angel... this buckaroo is some guy! He's on a rootin' tootin' mission from above... looking for a lost soul! — Also released as Montana Mike, Heaven Only Knows is an offbeat western with fantasy overtones. Hard-bitten gambling boss Brian Donlevy rules his frontier community with brawn and bullets. To his dismay, Donlevy discovers that he has a guardian angel (Robert Cummings), who shows up in the guise of an Eastern tenderfoot. The angel has been sent from Above to save Donlevy's soul, and to that end encourages the one-time villain to squire a minister's daughter (Jorja Curtwright) rather than his usual dance-hall girls. Donlevy is also given tips on winning against his enemies without resorting to gunplay. The gambler finally redeems himself with Heaven by rescuing the angel from a lynch mob (how can you lynch an angel?) Heaven Only Knows deserves an "E" for Effort for bringing a fresh twist to the venerable western genre.
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California
California The 1850sMighty drama of men who were titans...and a woman who was their match! — "Wicked" Lily Bishop joins a wagon train to California, led by Michael Fabian and Johnny Trumbo, but news of the Gold Rush scatters the train. When Johnny and Michael finally arrive, Lily is rich from her saloon and storekeeper (former slaver) Pharaoh Coffin is bleeding the miners dry. But worse troubles are ahead: California is inching toward statehood, and certain people want to make it their private empire.
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Canyon Passage
Oregon Florida The 1850sEvery Exciting Character! — Businessman Logan Stuart is torn between his love of two very different women in 1850s Oregon and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
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Wagon Heels
🇺🇸 United States of America The 1850s The 1840sPorky leads a wagon train into "Injun Joe Territory," and finally comes up against the fearsome Superchief. But Sloppy Moe, a survivor of a previous Injun Joe attack, knows something about him he won't tell... until the very end.
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Can't Help Singing
California The 1850s The 1840sLOVELY is the Word! DEANNA in TECHNICOLOR for the First Thrilling Time! with the Miracle Melodies of JEROME KERN! — With the California Gold Rush beginning, Senator Frost's singing daughter Caroline loves a young army officer; the Senator can't stand him, and has him sent to California. Headstrong Caroline follows him by train, riverboat, and covered wagon, gaining companions en route: a vagrant Russian prince and gambler Johnny Lawlor, who just might take her mind off the army.
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Santa Fe Trail
New York Kansas Virginia District of Columbia The 1860s The 1850sWhere the railroad and civilization ended, the Sante Fe Trail began! — As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, George Armstrong Custer and four friends are assigned to the 2nd Cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. While there they aid in the capture and execution of the abolitionist, John Brown following the Battle of Harper's Ferry.
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Abe Lincoln in Illinois
Illinois The 1860s The 1850sNow on the screen! — Abe Lincoln in Illinois is a 1940 biographical film which tells the story of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his departure from Kentucky until his election as President of the United States.
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