Train to Tombstone

I saw this movie in the late '50's on a double feature with A STAR IS BORN,fo all things. And it still stands out sharp in my mind as the worst movie i have ever seen. The cast was a set of cliches as a kind of ripoff of Stagecoach, and there was only one set, the interior of a railroad car. All the action was out the windows, and entirely by rear projection. That was so bad that when the Indians swept past the windows, they must have been 50 feet high. And when someone sent a flock of sheep to stop the train, you saw a flock of sheep, but no tracks, no train. The incompetence of the production reached a kind of perfection.

One of the worst movies ever to make to the bottom half of a double bill. Extremely low-budget, and it shows. Lame script (loosely based on Stagecoach), acting varying from firmly stereotypical to "what am I doing here" painful, narrative consisting of a string of set pieces with little attempt to tie them to the story line, in which the train has to "get through", and there's a plot to steal a whack of gold.

Most of the action is shot on a single set, the interior of a passenger coach. Almost all external shots are either rear projection or stock footage, chosen with scant regard for authenticity and still less for continuity. I watched this mess because it has a railroad setting. The train includes a mid 20th century baggage car on a supposedly mid- to late 19th century run to Tombstone. There's a lot of shooting, with dramatic falling off screen when wounded, etc. One of the characters is shot in the left shoulder, and receives a bandage around his middle.

That may stand as the level of writing and editing of this waste of celluloid. Well, maybe not a total waste. It could be used in a film studies course as an example of how not do it. Recommended as just such an example, if you're in the mood for it.

When his popularity began to drop at the box-office, Barry signed with Producer Lippert to make a series of low-budget entries. This one has Barry posing as an outlaw during train ride to Tombstone. This movie was shown so often on local L.A. TV stations, it soon became a euphemism for repitition! If it's on late, turn in early.

It's a motley assortment of passengers aboard the train. Tom Neal is a new doctor, headed out west to set up practice. Judith Allen is off to marry an army officer she's never met, accompanied by her Irish aunt; there's a lady off to open a gambling house, a pastor, and even a comical corset salesman in the person of Wally Vernon. The conductor is worried about bandits. They're carrying a big shipment of gold. Finally, rider Don Barry shoots a man out of his saddle and climbs aboard.

There will be suspicion, Indian attacks, and the same mountains go by the train every inch of the way -- I suppose they figured no one would notice. This late B western, released through Lippert has a few glitches in its story-telling mechanism, but one thing it doesn't lack is excitement. Director William Berke knows how to direct his performers in roles that go just beyond stereotype, and long-time western movie editor Carl Pierson keeps the cutting rate fast.

Don't be too hard with this little western please; it is short, sharp, not boring at all and also bringing some suspense. I have seen far far worse. It is not the worst of director William Berke either. I prefer it to the singing westerns starring Roy Rogers or other ones starring the likes of Allan Rocky Lane, Johnny Mc Brown or Ken Maynard. It could have been more action packed, I admit. But that's a good time waster. William Burke, and not only him, brought us many of this kind in the late forties and early fifties. I hope to find more of them from my library in the future. I bought so many of tose films thirty years ago.... Tons of them.