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The Virginian Overview:

The Virginian (1929) was a Western - Film Adaptation Film directed by Victor Fleming and produced by Louis D. Lighton and B.P. Schulberg.

SYNOPSIS

Owen Wister's novel was one of the best-known and best-loved Western tales of its day: it was produced twice for the silent screen before this first talking version; it made a star of future silent Western hero William S. Hart in its stage incarnation; and it received a color treatment in the '40s and a long-running TV series adaptation in the '60s. Cooper's first talking role set his heroic image in the public mind as the ranch hand who reluctantly helps lynch his one-time rival in love. On his wedding day, he redeems himself in the eyes of his fiancee when he guns down the man who led his friend to crime.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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The Virginian Quotes:

Steven 'Steve': The only thing I don't like about this stealin' business is the hard work.
Trampas: [laughs] Hard work but easy pickin's.
Trampas: Well, I heard the only way a man can get shot in the back is runnin' away.
Trampas: Well, who's talkin' to you?
The Virginian: I'm talkin' to you, Trampas!
Trampas: When I want to know anything from you, I'll tell ya, you long-legged son-of-a -...
The Virginian: [Trampas stops talking abruptly as the Virginian's pistol is pressed against his abdomen] If you want to call me that, smile!
Trampas: With a gun against my belly, I - I always smile!
[He grins broadly]
Trampas: You're liable to talk yourself into a heap of trouble, my friend.
The Virginian: Since when was I your friend, Trampas?
Trampas: This world isn't big enough for the both of us!
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The Virginian Facts
Gary Cooper's first all-talking film. He felt that sound would ruin him, believing his voice wasn't adequate to the task. Yet, it was "The Virginian" that turned him from a promising young leading man into a full-fledged star.
The original play by Owen Wister and Kirk La Shelle opened in New York on 5 January 1904.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by MCA ever since.
As in the novel and the play that the movie is based on, the Virginian's name is never mentioned.
Future western movie icon Randolph Scott, from Virginia, was hired as a dialect coach to teach Gary Cooper a Virginia accent, and also has a small non-speaking part in the film.
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