AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
THE DONNER PARTY
PBS.org | IMDb
Written and Directed by
Ric Burns
Produced by
Lisa Ades, Ric Burns
Edited by
Bruce Shaw
Narrated by
David McCullough
Voices
J.D. Cannon
Timothy Hutton
Gene Jones
Amy Madigan
Donal McCann
George Plimpton
Paul Roebling
Lois Smith
Frances Sternhagen
Eli Wallach
Cinematography
Buddy Squires with Allen Moore
Associate Producer
Matthew Butcher
Assistant Editor
Edward Barteski, Jr.
Sound Editor
Ira Spiegel
Senior Creative Consultants
Richard Snow
Geoffrey Ward
Consultants
Thomas Andrews
Donald Buck
Donald L. Hardesty
Thomas H. Hunt
Joseph A. King
Merrill J. Mattes
Patricia Nelson Limerick
Richard Rhoads
Max Rudin
Wallace Stegner
Original Music Composed and Arranged by
Brian Keane
Film Description
"...Remember, never take no cut-offs and hurry along as fast as you can."
-- Virginia Reed, Donner Party survivor
A cautionary tale of human endeavor and failure, hope and despair, greed and ambition, The Donner Party chronicles the harrowing tale of the ill-fated emigrant group who set out for the promised land of California in the spring of 1846, only to meet with disaster in the snows of the Sierra Nevada the following winter.
Using archival photographs, paintings, and maps; diaries, letters and memoirs of the party members; interviews with writers and historians; and new cinematography from across the Oregon and California trails, The Donner Party traces the emigrants' 2500-mile journey from Springfield, Illinois, to Sutter's Fort in California. The letters, memoirs, and diary selections are read by actors including Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Frances Sternhagen, George Plimpton, Lois Smith, and Eli Wallach.
The journey began in 1846, three years before the Gold Rush, as part of the large tide of American emigration that was just beginning to settle the Mexican province of Upper California. In July of that year, following the advice of a guide book written by a persuasive promoter named Lansford W. Hastings, the Donner party split off from the main body of emigrants heading for California to take an untried "shortcut" across the barren reaches of the Great Basin which is bordered by the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.
The torturously difficult route was their undoing. Weeks behind schedule and desperately short of food, the Donner party did not reach the mountains of California until late October -- where they were stopped by the first blizzard of what would prove to be the worst winter in the history of the Sierra Nevada.
The five months the group spent trapped on the eastern side of the Sierra culminated in death and cannibalism. Of the 87 men, women and children in the Donner Party, 46 survived: two thirds of the women and children, but only one third of the men.
Video #0
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PBS American Experience - The Donner Party (1992).avi 
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Transcripción del programa
The Gold Rush (PBS, 2006) DVBrip VO
