Les conquérants de Carson City

While the Western genre is not one of my favourite film genres, there is still appreciation for it and there are many classics in it. Also like one of the genre's icons Randolph Scott, though not a favourite, with some of his best work being with Budd Boetticher. Andre De Toth was a very gifted director, with already good experience with Westerns (the genre he revisited most frequently), and sadly undervalued. Those were the main reasons for seeing 1952's 'Carson City'.

'Carson City' for me turned out to be an uneven film that finished a good deal weaker than it started. It is also though a mostly enjoyable ride that has a lot to recommend it. It is not the best work of either Scott or De Toth, but again it is not a lesser effort of either of them. Somewhere in the middle for both and when it comes to their collaborations together there is a preference for 'Man in the Saddle' and 'Riding Shotgun', but again a lot is very well done here.

It is at its weakest with the completely superfluous and quite watery love triangle that turned out to not be as incidental to the story as it should have been. It doesn't help that Lucille Norman is incredibly bland and ill at ease, or that her role is very sketchy.

Really do wish that the conclusion was as good as how 'Carson City' started. Instead it was very predictable and lacked tension.

A shame because 'Carson City' started off incredibly well with a quite exhilarating opening. That excitement is maintained for a vast majority of the length, with a good deal of tautly paced and atmospheric storytelling. De Toth's direction is typically confident, one would not think he was actually a last minute replacement, and of the acting only Norman is bad. Scott's gritty charisma is evident throughout and there is strong support from Raymond Massey and Richard Webb.

Visually it looks good, with the photography having a good sense of style and atmosphere. Nothing cheap about the settings either. The music never felt at odds, and the script is lean and intelligent as well as pull no punches.

Concluding, enjoyable. 7/10.

Carson City has the distinction of two real western characters hiring the fictional character played by Randolph Scott to build a railroad from Virginia City to Carson City. William Sharon(Larry Keating) is getting very tired of having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits who also cater when they do a holdup. Sharon approaches banker Charles Crocker(Thurston Hall)who also is a big wheel in the Central Pacific railroad to build a spur line so he can ship by railroad.

Of course the railroad has its opponents in Carson City and quite subtly mine owner Raymond Massey is heading the opposition. Because Massey doesn't have a working mine, he does it the easy way, he robs the gold from the other guys and then ships it as his own.

Massey's the brains behind those bandit/caterers. His bandits holdup the stagecoach have the passengers removed and then show them to a picnic lunch topped off by a magnum of champagne. The other passengers don't care when the rich Larry Keating gets robbed and aren't too helpful to the law. It's unique in westerns I have to say, but it's also kind of silly, the sort of stuff you might see in a western from Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, but not Randolph Scott.

Starting out with such a silly premise it was hard for me to get really into Carson City, even after it turned deadly serious with Massey trying to stop the railroad in any way he can.

Randolph Scott had a unique leading lady here, radio singer Lucille Norman who sings not a note. That's a pity because the woman had a wonderful soprano. I have an album she did with Gordon MacRae of the score from The Desert Song. Lucille is the daughter of Carson City Clarion editor Don Beddoe who gets murdered by Massey when his suspicions are aroused. Lucille is also got Scott's half brother Richard Webb, TV and radio's Captain Midnight as a rival suitor and opponent of the railroad. Randy's got all kinds of personal problems for taking on this job.

Carson City is also badly edited. There were a few things that were left in the air that I'm sure wound up on the cutting room floor.

Randolph Scott's legion of fans will like Carson City, but it's far from his best work.

Standard Randolph Scott oater with one notable exception - the opening stage robbery. Sensible and stylish above and beyond the norm.

First of all, how many times have we seen gangs waiting on horseback for the stage they've targeted, only to wind up chasing the damned thing for as long as the director wants and the producers can afford? Since the bad guys know when it's coming, they should be blocking the road and positioning themselves IN FRONT of it to make the heist easier on everyone. Their horses would definitely appreciate not having to run long distances at full speed, especially with people on the stage returning gunfire. A horse could get injured or killed because its owner was too stupid to form a more efficient plan. OSHA and the SPCA would have jointly condemned the vast majority of stagecoach holdups that occurred on our screens.

So kudos to Massey's (not a spoiler; we quickly learn old Raymond is the brains of the outfit) minions for how they pulled this job. Not only did they avail themselves of fortuitous terrain, lying in wait to stop the coach without having to chase or shoot at anyone. As a bonus, they used their down time to spread out an elegant, al fresco champagne brunch for the passengers, stealing only the contents of the strongbox. The gentlemen thieves of other genres (The Saint, et. Al.) could have done no better.

When "Carson City" begins, a stagecoach is being robbed. However, oddly, these bandits have class and treat their 'guests' to a nice picnic lunch complete with champagne! Not surprisingly, they're dubbed the Champagne Bandits and the mine owner whose gold was stolen is furious. He proposes to build a railroad and avoid all this banditry. To help him get the job done, he brings in an engineer/troubleshooter, Jeff Kincaid (Randolph Scott). However, the new railroad is opposed by two forces--the local newspaper that's afraid it will usher in thugs and the guy who is secretly behind all the robberies. Can Jeff manage to get the job done-- especially when the baddies seem willing to do ANYTHING to stop them?

This is generally a well made and enjoyable film--which isn't surprising since Scott stars in it. He seemed to always make even the most ordinary material better and this movie is no exception. The complaints I have are relatively minor (such as how dumb Zeke is when he learns who's behind the robberies--way to do Zeke!) and the film is solid and entertaining.

By the way, the pretty lady starring in the film is NOT Virginia Mayo but a near lookalike, Lucille Norman.

No need to repeat the plot. I'm surprised Warner Bros. didn't introduce Warnercolor by going to a scenic location like the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. Instead, they took a cheaper route, filming in the scrubby hills of greater LA. Otherwise, it's a pretty routine entry in the Randoph Scott sweepstakes. Casting him as a railroad engineer is novel, at the same time, the tunnel collapse furnishes some unusual suspense for a western. The buckboard crash is spectacular even for a sagebrush staple like buckboard crashes.

However, the plot's a little overcrowded for my liking, while the powerful Raymond Massey is pretty much wasted in a role any number of lesser actors could have handled. Then too, director De Toth films in straightforward fashion, unlike the beautifully wrought intrigue of his western masterpiece, Ramrod (1947). All in all, it's a decent oater, but for a Randy Scott feature, it's nothing special.