Pacific Express

1939's "Union Pacific" was the final black and white feature for the legendary director Cecil B. De Mille, coming on the heels of John Ford's "Stagecoach," spearheading the revival of Hollywood Westerns from hour long quickies to major productions. Owing a debt to Ford's own 1924 silent "The Iron Horse," De Mille proved again a master showman, a fine cast and epic scenes of destruction and Indian battles, though top billed Barbara Stanwyck's oirish accent calls attention to one of her least rewarding performances. Fortunately, Joel McCrea is everything the script calls for, a towering troubleshooter for the Union Pacific railroad, quick to put an end to problems arising in their goal to combine east and west coasts. Banker Henry Kolker is buttressed by reliable villain Brian Donlevy (already well versed in railroad chicanery in Fox's "Jesse James"), confederates played by Fuzzy Knight, Anthony Quinn, Robert Barrat, and Lon Chaney Jr. Robert Preston is the literal wild card in this stacked deck, Donlevy's partner in crime but soft for pretty Stanwyck. For Chaney fans, coming off a small role as 'One of James Gang' in the aforementioned "Jesse James," his role is nothing more than a bearded extra with no dialogue, less than a minute on screen in just two short scenes, in at 26 minutes (aboard the train when a henchman takes a potshot at a defenseless Indian), out at 36 (seated in the saloon when Donlevy offers up free drinks). Lon would fare better in De Mille's "North West Mounted Police" (in the wake of his triumphant "Of Mice and Men"), but would never work for the illustrious director after that. Another trivia note finds unbilled Richard Denning playing a reporter, only three years before wedding Chaney co-star Evelyn Ankers in a lasting union.

After four years of the Civil War, President Lincoln approves the construction of a transcontinental railroad. It becomes a competition between Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. Chicago money man Asa M. Barrows schemes to undermine Union Pacific and short sell their stock. He hires Sid Campeau and Dick Allen (Robert Preston) to set up gambling houses and saloons to get the Union workers drunk and delay their work. Dick is taken with train engineer's daughter Mollie Monahan (Barbara Stanwyck). War veteran and Union Pacific trouble shooter Jeff Butler (Joel McCrea) is tasked with cleaning up the disruption from Dick's gambling houses. The railroad rivals become rivals for Mollie.

It's director Cecil B. DeMille. It's a big old western. It's weird to hear Stanwyck doing a semi-Irish accent. It's a grand production. It may be big and sprawling but I'm not sure that it's a terribly good movie. Despite the boy scout mentality and pretty boy face, I don't find the Jeff Butler character that appealing. The story is a bit messy. The rivalry holds a lot of promise but it needs more head to head confrontations. This may have elevated the western back in its day but it is mostly forgotten now.

It doesn't suffer from any of his usual flaws. The pacing is perfect, the acting is not at all stilted, and the technical aspects don't dominate the story or the characters. The story centers around the building of the titular railroad. A banker hires a motley group of gamblers and whoremongers (led by Brian Donlevy) to slow down production and then invests in the Central Pacific. Joel McCrea plays a railroad cop, basically, who sees that Donlevy is trouble. He can't outright kick him out, because his army buddy and best friend (Robert Preston) is Donlevy's partner. To further complicate the relationship between McCrea and Preston, there is a girl caught between them (Barbara Stanwyck). It's a great story supported by fine performances all around. While the film runs for 2 hours and 19 minutes, it never seemed boring at all. There are several exciting setpieces, most notably an Indian attack. There are also a couple of great suspense sequences. I loved the scene where McCrea corners Preston and Stanwyck after the payroll has been stolen. It goes on for a long time but the suspense never breaks. Generally I don't think DeMille has skill enough to pull something like that off. My only real problem is that sometimes the good guys are as bad as the villains. McCrea has two sidekicks, played by Akim Tamiroff and Lynne Overman, who can't help but be referred to as henchmen. I mean, even the characters' names are sinister, Fiesta and Leach. Donlevy has a couple of henchmen as well (Anthony Quinn in an early role and Robert Barrat), and they aren't any scarier.

Amidst the glamour of "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz", this b&w Cecil B. DeMille Historical Fiction Classic received its share of eager 1939 movie theatre audiences. Starring a wholesome Irish immigrant Barbara Stanwyck, a noble law man Joel McCrae and a dashing dare devil Robert Preston, "Union Pacific" delivers a love-triangle centered around the historic 1869 joining of rail road tracks to connect the Western and Eastern borders of the United States. The love story is "formula", but delivers several "moments" where many viewers will fumble for their Kleenex. The climactic final scene showing the pay-off for all of the material and human sacrifices is priceless!

The very last of DeMille's b&w ventures, Union Pacific is one of those gems that endured the test of time, endearing the "glorious black and white" to generations of viewers. I first saw this classic as a child; I loved it then, as I still do today. Of all of the Hollywood movies ever produced, no single year of film-making has ever stood out from the rest like 1939. "Union Pacific" helped solidify this status. A true Hollywood Classic!

Union Pacific is directed by Cecil B. DeMille (aided by others due to illness) and based upon the novel Trouble Shooter, written by Ernest Haycox. It stars Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff and Lynne Overman. Story is a fictionalised account of the building of the railroad across the American West, encompassing the trials, tribulations and rivalries that formed as history was being made.

"The legend of Union Pacific is the drama of a nation, young, tough, prodigal and invincible, conquering with an iron highroad the endless reaches of the West. For the West is America's Empire, and only yesterday Union Pacific was the West".

A big production that went down a storm at the box office upon release, Union Pacific, in spite of its overt patriotic bluster, is an entertaining and important part of the Western movie story. Alongside John Ford's Stagecoach, which was released a couple of months previously, DeMille's movie helped take the Western to a new and more adult level. It wouldn't be until the 50's that the Western truly found its mojo, but the influence of both Stagecoach and Union Pacific was firmly felt through each passing decade.

Film manages to be literate whilst puncturing the plot with doses of action, the story underpinned by a love triangle between McCrea, Stanwyck and Preston. The former as the stoic troubleshooter brought in to keep order, the latter as the charming villain with a heart. Cast all work well with the material to hand, and if one is not bothered by the historical tampering involved in the story? Then it's an easy film to recommend to Western movie seekers. 7/10