Gli avvoltoi della strada ferrata

Seems to be a re-hash of Kansas Pacific with a lot of the same actors!

I guess Audie Murphy was not available to play in this Jessie Hibbs' western ; Hibbs who was his fetish director - as Lon Chaney was with Tod Browning or Gregory Peck with Hank King - and Dan Duryea already faced Murphy in RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO the very same year. So, replacing Audie Murphy by John Payne deserves to be noticed. And I did not remember Payne playing in Universal films either. That said, this western, even without the most decorated soldier in WW2, remains solid, taut, efficient enough to grab your attention. I did not watch it since a while and I am glad to see it again. A railroad western, a genre in the genre; as you also had posse westerns, military fort westerns, town under outlaws rule westerns, cattle baron or ruthless landlords vs rustlers westerns, indian wars westerns....

Progress on the railroad has pretty much ground to a halt as the workers spend most of their time drinking rotgut in Dan Duryea's boozer.

The leading citizens of the town request military help and tough soldier, Payne, is appointed as a sort of temporary marshal. Trouble is, he's an old mate of Duryea so it looks as though there's going to be a conflict of interests.

This is an above average Universal western: the two main protagonists play off each other well and there is excellent support from a very large cast of familiar westerners (many uncredited). Special mentions must go to Lee Van Cleef as a menacing, trigger happy bad guy (was he ever anything else?), Mari Blanchard as a saloon girl with a heart of gold (was she ever anything else?) and James Griffith, cast against type in a humorous role, as a bumbling ineffectual lawman.

Action scenes are well staged - particularly those on the trains - the photography is first class and the Technicolor beautiful as always.

Oh, and as an added bonus for B western fans, there's a title song over the opening credits rumbled out by the ever popular Rex Allen....

Army sergeant John Payne is ordered to clear up the situation in Laramie single-handedly. He finds his childhood buddy Dan Duryea running a saloon and paying off everyone in sight to keep the work moving as slow as possible; the longer it takes, the more of the rail workers' pay he can pocket. Payne gets himself appointed marshal and jails all the baddies.... but their friends on the juries keep setting them free.

It's another of the 'Shaky A' westerns from Universal in this period, directed by the reliable Jesse Hibbs. Like most of the westerns from Universal in this period, it's in Technicolor, has a couple of minor stars, a few key character actors like Barton Maclane and Lee van Cleef and a spectacular finale of a fight in a train that's about to crash into a passenger train. The result is good, if standard fun.

It's produced by Ted Richmond. He began producing B movies for Columbia in 1940. When Cohn shut down his series, he switched to Universal, where he worked on all sorts of programmers. He produced 56 movies by 1957, and then slowed down. Over the next 22 years, he produced 10 movies, including PAPILLON. He died in 2013 at the age of 103.

Troubleshooter Jefferson Harder (John Payne) is sent to Laramie by the Army to investigate the sabotage that is preventing the railroad from finishing it's line connecting the East and West. Upon arrival Payne quickly finds out the worst kept secret in town, that old buddy and current town saloon owner Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is behind the chicanery, though nobody is ever able to prove Shanessy and his henchmen (Myron Healey and Lee Van Cleef) are involved. The town leaders, while happy about support from the Army, are disappointed from the start that they have only sent one man to do the job and grow increasingly critical of the heavy-handed tactics employed by Payne to clean up the town.

Rails Into Laramie packs a lot of action into it's 80 minute run time. Between busting bad guys heads Payne barely has time to strike up a romantic relationship with Dance Hall owner and partner of Jim Shanessy, Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard). Very little melodrama to be found in this one as Payne spends most of his time eradicating the town's scofflaws.

This movie follows the Universal International Pictures formula of using off the A-list leading actors with familiar casts, packaged in a medium budget production. A formula that worked very well for them and it works here too. John Payne may be the best leading actor of the post World War II era that few people remember today. A versatile actor Payne looked equally a home whether in the saddle, a crime drama or a comedy. Here he carries the day in this action saddle flick.

Good drive-in grade Western flick.