The Virginian is a 1929 Western film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, and Richard Arlen. Based on the 1902 novel The Virginian by Owen Wister, the film is about a good-natured cowboy who romances the new schoolmarm and has a crisis of conscience when he learns his best friend is involved in cattle rustling. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images).