Night Passage (1957)
Country: US
Technical: col 90m
Director: James Neilson
Cast: James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea
Synopsis:
A former railroad man is hired to guard a payroll, even though his kid brother is one of a band of outlaws that might want to steal it.
Review:
A curiosity this, recreating the early days of the railroad with great care, and restoring, more or less, Stewart's easygoing, avuncular persona after so many Mann Westerns had complicated it with 'hate, murder and revenge'. The realistic framework is then bushwhacked by the very much larger-than-life characters of Duryea and Murphy. Indeed, there are almost too many characters gravitating around our hero - the old woman trader, the boy, the two women (one blonde, the other brunette), the railroad (represented by Jay C. Flippen), and the gang - so that none of it really gels, and the gone-to-bad kid brother idea appears too late to carry conviction. Nor is it made clear when Stewart the gunman became Stewart the accordion player: the past, so important to the plot, remains in the night shadows.
Country: US
Technical: col 90m
Director: James Neilson
Cast: James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea
Synopsis:
A former railroad man is hired to guard a payroll, even though his kid brother is one of a band of outlaws that might want to steal it.
Review:
A curiosity this, recreating the early days of the railroad with great care, and restoring, more or less, Stewart's easygoing, avuncular persona after so many Mann Westerns had complicated it with 'hate, murder and revenge'. The realistic framework is then bushwhacked by the very much larger-than-life characters of Duryea and Murphy. Indeed, there are almost too many characters gravitating around our hero - the old woman trader, the boy, the two women (one blonde, the other brunette), the railroad (represented by Jay C. Flippen), and the gang - so that none of it really gels, and the gone-to-bad kid brother idea appears too late to carry conviction. Nor is it made clear when Stewart the gunman became Stewart the accordion player: the past, so important to the plot, remains in the night shadows.
Country: US
Technical: col 90m
Director: James Neilson
Cast: James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea
Synopsis:
A former railroad man is hired to guard a payroll, even though his kid brother is one of a band of outlaws that might want to steal it.
Review:
A curiosity this, recreating the early days of the railroad with great care, and restoring, more or less, Stewart's easygoing, avuncular persona after so many Mann Westerns had complicated it with 'hate, murder and revenge'. The realistic framework is then bushwhacked by the very much larger-than-life characters of Duryea and Murphy. Indeed, there are almost too many characters gravitating around our hero - the old woman trader, the boy, the two women (one blonde, the other brunette), the railroad (represented by Jay C. Flippen), and the gang - so that none of it really gels, and the gone-to-bad kid brother idea appears too late to carry conviction. Nor is it made clear when Stewart the gunman became Stewart the accordion player: the past, so important to the plot, remains in the night shadows.