Many reviewers complain about Vera Ralston's acting in this film and others. I thought this former ice skating queen did an OK job playing her role. She is supposed to be the elegant daughter of an immigrant father who struck it rich in railroads. This explains her foreign accent and the fact that she is unlike those sexy dance hall girls of Fargo. Wayne appears to have married her mainly for her wealthy connections, looks and good pedigree. She appears to have married him for his good looks and charismatic personality. She is determined to call the shots when it comes to deciding where they will live, both near the beginning and at the end of the film. When they run away from her disapproving father, Wayne tells her to buy tickets to CA, but she buys tickets to St. Paul, knowing that her father's railroad is planning to soon begin a line to Fargo. She hopes to buy land cheap from the farmers and sell it dear to her father's railroad. Unfortunately, Ward Bond and gang have the same idea. Bond assumed the railroad was soon coming to Fargo because he saw their surveyors. He also assumes that Wayne is a land buying agent for the railroad(until late in the film, when the real agent shows up). Bond hammers out a contract with most of the farmers that he gets their land if they can't repay the money he loans them to harvest and market their wheat. He plans to burn their wheat, a variation on a similar scene in "The Westerner", when cattlemen were trying to burn out the sod busters. Wayne threatens to pressure the railroad to via Grand Forks, instead of Fargo, unless Bond signs over his contract with the farmers to Wayne(and presumably the railroad) for a big discount compared to the amount Bond was planning to sell the contract to the railroad. Wayne plans to share his profit with the farmers, should the farmers be unable to repay their loans. Bond hopes to steal the contract back from a deceased Wayne, delete the part about Wayne being the new contract owner and then burn the wheat fields. See the film to find out how things turn out.
Walter Brennan plays a goofy old riverboat captain who mostly talks to his boat or himself or shouts at his assistant, Nichodemis. He practically steals the show. Nick Stewart, as Nichodemis, plays his stock character:a sleepy, incredibly slow thinking "darkie". He was Lightin' in the Amos & Andy TV series.
Walter Brennan plays a goofy old riverboat captain who mostly talks to his boat or himself or shouts at his assistant, Nichodemis. He practically steals the show. Nick Stewart, as Nichodemis, plays his stock character:a sleepy, incredibly slow thinking "darkie". He was Lightin' in the Amos & Andy TV series.