Pacific Express

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.

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.

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.