It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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....

A very common and rather clichéd plots for old westerns is the notion of someone trying to stop the railroad. While there really wasn't a historical basis, too many films were about a supposed overt or covert effort to stop progress. In most all of them, however, the reason why the baddies are doing this is pretty obvious...but in this one I really couldn't see why Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is doing this...and it's a major weakness of the film.The man sent to help get the railroad built is an Army Sergeant, Jeff Harder (John Payne) and through most of the film, he makes very little progress thanks to Shanessy and a rather stupid town that tolerates Shanessy's antics. It all leads up to a murder conviction, a jail escape and train chase. None of it's bad...none of it's outstanding in any way. A standard and rather clichéd film.By the way, late in the film a lady is shot from about 8-10 feet away with what is probably a .45 Colt cartridge. Amazingly, she survived...a miracle and a half!

The premise of this picture managed to puzzle me right from the start and I couldn't figure it out. In any other Western, the town boss or main villain would be looking for a way to buy out all the surrounding ranchers so he would have control of the property when the railroad would eventually come through. A railroad station usually meant increased business traffic for the local establishments, which were also usually controlled by the principal bad guy. In this story, businessman Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) wanted to slow up or stop the railroad construction to keep the local workers hanging around his saloon in town or the one he owned at the mining camp. It all seemed kind of contrived to me.As in any other Western however, the hero needs to step in and stop the skulduggery going on. Jeff Harder (John Payne) is a Cavalry sergeant disturbed out of his twenty eight day leave to go on a special mission to Laramie and solve the railroad problem. Arriving in town he quickly surmises that he'll eventually have to go up against long time pal Shanessy and his henchmen, Ace (Lee Van Cleef) and Con Winton (Myron Healey). Shanessy's business manager and partner Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard) appears to be the wild card in this stacked deck, and you might consider her eventual turn to be a bit of a twist ending.The story introduces a nifty element of American history by inserting a sequence involving an all woman jury, the first of it's kind in the country making headlines in the Laramie Journal. This followed Wyoming becoming the first state to give women the right to vote, and it was an interesting departure from the main story. It also proved to be the impetus for the undoing of Shanessy as the town's principal money man, though it would take a bit more leg work on the part of Harder. Right up until the end I wasn't sure what Lou Carter was really up to but the closing clinch with Jeff Harder answered that question. Apparently he'd be facing a new hitch once his cavalry one ran it's course.

John Payne stars in this 1954 sagebrush saga, which also features several western favorites as co-stars. The railroad sends a representative to get to the bottom of a gang's attempts to disrupt the rail-lines.The film is well-paced and Payne is a good choice to play the lead role. Dan Duryea steals many of the scenes he appears in and the great Lee Van Cleef was fine in his all too brief supporting role.Payne appeared in a number of Westerns in the '40's and '50's, but was never able to reach the same success as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart or Glenn Ford had in the genre. This film was a good example of his work and should be enjoyed by die-hard Western movie fans........