Overland Telegraph

The Overland Telegraph is changing the west and Tim Holt and Richard Martin are around for the changes. It's also interfering in lives of a lot of people both economically and romantically.

This Tim Holt B western has a bit more plot to it than most of the genre. Storekeeper George Nader is stuck with a lot of inventory earmarked for the army. But the coming of the telegraph means that posts are closing and Nader could be ruined. He enlists the help of his friend and local saloon owner Hugh Beaumont to temporarily wreck the telegraph construction camp and supplies that Cliff Clark runs along with his daughter Gail Davis. There's also an unspoken romantic triangle going with Beaumont, Nader, and saloon singer Mari Blanchard that gets into the plot in an unhealthy way.

Outsiders Tim and Chito are the ones who solve all the mysteries and entanglements. Tim thinks the telegraph is the marvel of the age. But the idea of communicating cross the continent means for Chito a way to keep tabs on his senoritas in California. Chito Rafferty always had a one track mind.

Familiar television faces like Gail Davis from Annie Oakley, George Nader from The Man And The Challenge and Ward Cleaver himself as the chief bad guy makes this film, well familiar.

Good entry in the Tim Holt series.

This is another of the good B Westerns that Tim Holt did for RKO from when he took over the franchise about 1940 through 1952, with a pause during World War Two for Air Force service. Besides the usual B+ values, including good comic relief by series sidekick Richard Martin, we get a slightly off-kilter performance by Hugh Beaumont (best known as the father on "Leave it to Beaver") as the chief bad guy and Gail Davis as the female lead for this episode -- usually this series featured competent and strong-willed female characters. I must say that I am particularly impressed by Miss Davis' performance here. Judging by her IMDb resume, she seems to have had a fairly undistinguished career. But given the strong writing in this movie, it's likely she was not so well served elsewhere.

Passing through looking for work, Tim and Chito get caught up in robbery, murder and a love triangle when local businessman Paul Manning (George Nader) hatches a plan to save his failing supply business. Manning who will lose his contract with the Army due to a new telegraph line, plots to halt construction of the line with the aid of saloon owner and all-around town bad guy Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont) and his henchmen (Robert J. Wilke, Fred Graham, Robert Bray). Manning soon finds himself in over his head as events spin out of control.

Like most of the post war Tim Holt Flicks, 'Overland Telegraph' has better than average production values and a fairly evolved story line as B-Westerns go. Holt once again teams up with prolific director Lesley Selander to crank out another pretty good saddle burner, which by this time Holt and Selander could do in their sleep. Holt who had grown tired of the direction of his movies and Hollywood life in general, has less screen time than usual. It has more of the feel of an ensemble cast. Ironically over the next decade much of the supporting cast would move on to more prominent roles in popular television programs of the era. Holt, though still a relatively young man, would pack up his bags and leave Hollywood behind in less than a year.

As RKO cut back production budgets and Tim Holt became progressively disengaged from the movie business, the series declined in the final years. Even so 'Overland Telegraph' is one of Tim Holt's best later films.

Tim and Chito get mixed up in a scheme to sabotage newly laid telegraph lines. Seems the new technology is changing how the army provisions its outposts, thus undercutting local providers.

The 60-minutes amount to a good matinée western, with a complex plot and lots of maneuvering that includes a really engaging Gail Davis (no wonder Gene Autry grabbed onto her), plus familiar greater LA locations. Holt fans, however, may be disappointed since he doesn't get much focal screen time, but is more like one of the bunch. Also, catch familiar baddies Robert Wilke and Fred Graham picking up paydays. In fact, Wilke gets more dialog than usual, while Graham gets a headache from Chito. There's also a good detail touch where Manning gets shot in the arm and favors it for the rest of the movie. Ordinarily, these matinée productions dispensed with such realistic detail. Also, the plot premise about how the telegraph affects local businessmen is informative and not something covered in history books.

Usually western baddies aren't as handsome as the hero. Here that's not the case with budding matinée idol George Nader as semi-bad guy Manning, and Beaver Cleaver's dad Hugh Beaumont as baddie Roberts. Add Holt's good-looking sidekick Martin as Chito, and I'm thinking the ordinary looking Tim Holt has a really strong Hollywood ego in an industry where fragile egos usually don't tolerate competition.

Anyway, the movie's a solid production, of the sort that unfortunately would soon give way to cheaper 30-minute TV.

In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) enlists the assistance of a gang of outlaws led by Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont). Unfortunately for the bad guys, Holt and his cohort Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) sense that there's foul play afoot and embark on an investigation.

This entry is a lesser one, mainly it isn't has engaging and the plot isn't so loaded with incidents, however the double-crossing relationship between Nader and Beaumont and their complex motives is interesting. It adds some nuanced to the story. Another interesting character is Gail Davis who plays a daughter of a telegram construction work and does some work on the wire.