Reworked after principal photography wrapped?
As "dinky-4" points out in his/her user comment, a love triangle sub-plot is set up fairly early on and then surprisingly abandoned later in this picture. Furthermore, despite the title, the story ends well before the wagon train reaches Oregon (that it does do so is implied with an actorless montage of the wagons [definitely either second-unit work or stock footage] and a voice-over song, leading into the closing titles). I also note that the actors who appear ONLY in the scenes involving President Polk are uncredited, and the one character therein who is featured prominently throughout the remainder of the film is completely unrecognizable. Admittedly, the audience is supposed to be in the dark as to this person's identity, but it seems to me that it is simply a different actor here. Given that and the lack of billing for the others, I can't help but suspect that these scenes were filmed and dropped into the picture after it was "completed," and perhaps others deleted. All this makes me suspect that the film was significantly reworked between principle photography and release. Does anybody have any specific and factual knowledge to support or refute this theory?
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