Pacific Express

Moving across the American wilderness, east to west, the mighty UNION PACIFIC Railroad stretches to meet its rival - the Central Pacific - taming a continent with steel rails. Overcoming Nature's disasters, hostile natives & corrupt politicians, the engines bring with them the people whose hopes are inextricably tied into the railroad's success or failure.

In 1939, Hollywood's Golden Year, kingpin director Cecil B. DeMille presented his biggest, flashiest film yet. It was to be nothing less than the story of how the American West was conquered by the great railroads & her indomitable builders. To realize DeMille's vision on the screen, Paramount allocated hundreds of extras & large coffers of money to the project. Authentic rolling stock was acquired. The president of the contemporary Union Pacific enthusiastically sent his finest track layers to work in the film. The movie would boost train wrecks (two of ‘em), Indian attacks, assorted villainies & a compelling love triangle.

DeMille demanded scrupulous attention to detail and his crowd scenes are very well conceived & produced. His early reels tend to be a bit preachy in touting the virtues of the railroad, but action scenes quickly follow which amply compensate for this. DeMille's subject matter & obvious patriotism help him to avoid the lapses of taste & vulgarities in which he tended to stray in many of his other film forays.

Even with a fake Irish brogue, Barbara Stanwyck charms in her role as a railroad postmistress & engineer's daughter. Feisty & volatile, always great fun to watch, it's easy to see why she's loved by both Joel McCrea (the hero) & Robert Preston (the antihero). Both gentlemen give good rousing performances in roles that might have strayed into the stereotypical, but never do.

Brian Donlevy, as the villain, gives another vivid portrait in what is rather a small role, but very much like the one he would play that same year in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN.

Akim Tamiroff & Lynne Overman are especially enjoyable as McCrea's scruffy, rather repulsive security enforcers; with whip & guns, these are two hombres you wouldn't want to tangle with. Robert Barrat as a murdering bully & Regis Toomey as a sweet-natured Irish worker, give impressive cameos. Anthony Quinn appears for a couple of scenes as a gambler who unwisely pulls a gun on McCrea, and lovely Evelyn Keyes has a scant few screen moments as a telegrapher's wife.

Sharp-eyed movie mavens may (or may not) be able to spot among the uncredited players Monte Blue, Ward Bond, Iron Eyes Cody, Will Geer, Noble Johnson, Elmo Lincoln & Mala playing various Indians, gamblers or railwaymen.

It would be most intriguing to run UNION PACIFIC in a double bill with John Ford's 1924 epic THE IRON HORSE, which tells the same historical story, but with a different artistic tack & fictional characters.

This is far and away my favorite Cecil B DeMille creation. It fully embraces his full-on Hollywood aesthetics - hokey drama, comic-book characters, huge action sequences and, of course, a long runtime. Those traits tend to make his films seem dated and absurd - but in the Western genre they work remarkably well.

Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck are at their most charismatic here - even though Stanwyck is needlessly burdened with a ludicrous Irish accent. Brian Donlevy is a perfect villain (as usual), and Robert Preston is the epitome of the best friend who can't make up his mind which side to be on.

The story clearly has some historical credibility. Of course, in this movie everything is simplified to comply with the dictates of Hollywood melodrama, but the real-world backbone holds up well enough to hold our interest. It also provides a perfect justification for some of DeMille's trademark action sequences. There are multiple train crashes, an 'Indian' (indigenous American!) attack, confrontations in a saloon, a train robbery and a shoot-out or three. Never a dull moment.

What makes this film more enjoyable than other DeMille epics is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Union Pacific lacks the pretensions of Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments (either version) or Cleopatra. It's also not as blandly melodramatic as films like North West Mounted Police or The Greatest Show on Earth. Oddly enough, I'd say DeMille's next-most-enjoyable film is his other big western, The Plainsman. Maybe the western genre was a particularly good fit for his style. Or maybe this was just a good period for him - he made these two films just three years apart in the late 1930s.

There's no mistaking Union Pacific for a great work of art. But it is fine 'popcorn' entertainment in the classic Hollywood tradition. If you get tired of the neverending reruns of DeMille's later color spectaculars, don't overlook this 'smaller' film.

Entertaining from start to finish, this is one of C. B. DeMille's better flicks. Joel McCrea plays the troubleshooter for the Union Pacific Railroad, which is to meet up with the Central Pacific Railroad out west. Barbara Stanwyck, with an Irish brogue, plays the daughter of a railroad engineer. Of course, there are scoundrels involved (Brian Donlevy, for one), and Robert Preston gets in the middle of the scheming. The action sequences are exciting, and there is just enough brawling with McCrea taking out the trash. The cast is loaded with familiar faces (too many of them in beards, by the way). Akim Tamiroff and Lynne Overman make a crazy pair. The typical ham acting and cornball script associated with DeMille's productions are ditched for the most part, except for when Regis Toomey buys the farm early on, and we are treated to a rendition of "Danny Boy."

UNION PACIFIC is one Cecil B. DeMille film that could have used 1939's Technicolor to tell the sprawling story of the pioneers who built the railroads that united east and west. Nevertheless, DeMille does get across the enormous amount of work involved in building the rails while a lot of skullduggery was going on behind the scenes to prevent a team of workers to reach the midpoint first.

JOEL McCREA is the perfect western hero for DeMille's story and gives his usual easy performance as the enforcer who has to keep the villains from halting progress on the rails. BRIAN DONLEVY makes a perfect heel and ROBERT PRESTON shows genuine charm and gives a double-layered performance as McCrea's longtime pal caught under the influence of the bad guys who want to cause havoc. REGIS TOOMEY is underused in a very brief role as an ill-fated Irish rail worker.

BARBARA STANWYCK gives her Irish accent a good try and, while not always successful, delivers a very likable performance as the post office gal along for the ride. ANTHONY QUINN has a brief supporting role as a badman, but the most colorful support comes from AKIM TAMIROFF as Fiesta, the man with the whip, and LYNNE OVERMAN, both playing McCrea's scruffy bodyguards. And boy, does he need them! EVELYN KEYES has one line and disappears. But DeMille keeps track of all his extras, using them effectively in all the big mob scenes both indoor and out.

Again, Technicolor was still new in 1939 but GONE WITH THE WIND was using seven Technicolor cameras and DeMille probably had no choice but to film in B&W. Let's just say, this is the kind of story that cried for Technicolor which may have made some of the process shots less noticeable for backgrounds shot in a studio.

DeMille's tendency to let his films run over two hours is present here. At least twenty minutes or more could easily have been cut to keep the story in a tighter mode.

For DeMille fans, definitely worth seeing.

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.