1923

1923

We have often recommended the Yellowstone TV series, appreciating the remarkable insights it offers on American land and resource wars (and related violence). Yellowstone was our 2019 Movie of the Year, and the prequel series 1883 was our pick for Movie of the Year in 2022. Now, Paramount+ has just finished streaming the second and final season of 1923, another prequel to Yellowstone created and written by Taylor Sheridan.

1923 largely focuses on the Dutton family’s experiences during Prohibition and the years leading up to the Great Depression, but in addition to filming in Montana and Texas, parts of the story were filmed in South Africa, Kenya, Zanzibar, Malta, and Kabul. Sheridan has stated, “I don’t build a world with visual effects. I go shoot these corners of the world that people haven’t seen.”

As in Yellowstone, 1923 illustrates the Dutton clan’s fierce attachment to the land and their chosen way of life. The Dutton matriarch tells a prospective bride,

“[Y]ou have to want more than the boy, you have to want the life, too. Because in this life, there’s no debating which is more important: the wedding or the cattle. It’s always the cattle.”

In addition to Isabel May, who played Elsa Dutton in 1883 and serves as 1923’s narrator, 1923 features Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as the Dutton patriarch and matriarch. When Ford met with Sheridan and asked to read a script, Sheridan reportedly said,

“You can when it’s written, but it ain’t written yet and you got to commit to it now. I need to know who I’m writing for…. [Ford] said yes…. Then came Helen, and same thing.”

A third Yellowstone prequel, tentatively titled 1944, is in the works, as is a spinoff featuring Yellowstone’s popular Beth and Rip characters. We are also fans of Sheridan’s Landman series set in the world of West Texas oil rigs.