Rails Into Laramie (1954)

Really Surprised!

best movie i've ever seen.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A very common and rather clichéd plots for old westerns is the notion of someone trying to stop the railroad. While there really wasn't a historical basis, too many films were about a supposed overt or covert effort to stop progress. In most all of them, however, the reason why the baddies are doing this is pretty obvious...but in this one I really couldn't see why Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is doing this...and it's a major weakness of the film.The man sent to help get the railroad built is an Army Sergeant, Jeff Harder (John Payne) and through most of the film, he makes very little progress thanks to Shanessy and a rather stupid town that tolerates Shanessy's antics. It all leads up to a murder conviction, a jail escape and train chase. None of it's bad...none of it's outstanding in any way. A standard and rather clichéd film.By the way, late in the film a lady is shot from about 8-10 feet away with what is probably a .45 Colt cartridge. Amazingly, she survived...a miracle and a half!

The premise of this picture managed to puzzle me right from the start and I couldn't figure it out. In any other Western, the town boss or main villain would be looking for a way to buy out all the surrounding ranchers so he would have control of the property when the railroad would eventually come through. A railroad station usually meant increased business traffic for the local establishments, which were also usually controlled by the principal bad guy. In this story, businessman Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) wanted to slow up or stop the railroad construction to keep the local workers hanging around his saloon in town or the one he owned at the mining camp. It all seemed kind of contrived to me.As in any other Western however, the hero needs to step in and stop the skulduggery going on. Jeff Harder (John Payne) is a Cavalry sergeant disturbed out of his twenty eight day leave to go on a special mission to Laramie and solve the railroad problem. Arriving in town he quickly surmises that he'll eventually have to go up against long time pal Shanessy and his henchmen, Ace (Lee Van Cleef) and Con Winton (Myron Healey). Shanessy's business manager and partner Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard) appears to be the wild card in this stacked deck, and you might consider her eventual turn to be a bit of a twist ending.The story introduces a nifty element of American history by inserting a sequence involving an all woman jury, the first of it's kind in the country making headlines in the Laramie Journal. This followed Wyoming becoming the first state to give women the right to vote, and it was an interesting departure from the main story. It also proved to be the impetus for the undoing of Shanessy as the town's principal money man, though it would take a bit more leg work on the part of Harder. Right up until the end I wasn't sure what Lou Carter was really up to but the closing clinch with Jeff Harder answered that question. Apparently he'd be facing a new hitch once his cavalry one ran it's course.

Troubleshooter Jefferson Harder (John Payne) is sent to Laramie by the Army to investigate the sabotage that is preventing the railroad from finishing it's line connecting the East and West. Upon arrival Payne quickly finds out the worst kept secret in town, that old buddy and current town saloon owner Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is behind the chicanery, though nobody is ever able to prove Shanessy and his henchmen (Myron Healey and Lee Van Cleef) are involved. The town leaders, while happy about support from the Army, are disappointed from the start that they have only sent one man to do the job and grow increasingly critical of the heavy-handed tactics employed by Payne to clean up the town.Rails Into Laramie packs a lot of action into it's 80 minute run time. Between busting bad guys heads Payne barely has time to strike up a romantic relationship with Dance Hall owner and partner of Jim Shanessy, Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard). Very little melodrama to be found in this one as Payne spends most of his time eradicating the town's scofflaws.This movie follows the Universal International Pictures formula of using off the A-list leading actors with familiar casts, packaged in a medium budget production. A formula that worked very well for them and it works here too. John Payne may be the best leading actor of the post World War II era that few people remember today. A versatile actor Payne looked equally a home whether in the saddle, a crime drama or a comedy. Here he carries the day in this action saddle flick.Good drive-in grade Western flick.

In this quality B western rails are going into Laramie, Wyoming, but they're not leaving. That's because saloon owner Dan Duryea with the implicit connivance of the town's merchants is finding all kinds of ways to keep the railroad workers spending their pay in their town and not getting any work done. All this is troubling the railroad owners and troubleshooter John Payne is detached from the army to deal with the trouble.Rails Into Laramie takes elements from the DeMille classic Union Pacific and Destry Rides Again and a nice story is concocted. Payne is a stalwart no nonsense hero who when he's not on the job is a bit of a hell raiser himself. But when he's given this job he's quite serious.Dan Duryea the chief villain is married to Joyce McKenzie, but has his partner in the saloon Mari Blanchard on the side. He's also got to do his bidding treacherous telegrapher Douglas Kennedy, bully boy railroad worker Charles Horvath to intimidate the others, and a pair of killer brothers Myron Healey and Lee Van Cleef.If you know the plots of both the previous mentioned films than you know the result in the end. What I really liked about Rails Into Laramie was the fact that Wyoming was organized as a territory at the same time as the transcontinental railroad was coming through and women got the vote. They also got some other rights and that fact is integrated into the plot.One of John Payne's good B westerns from the Fifties and the rest of the cast supports him well. And Dan Duryea is always excellent.