Overland Pacific (1954)
A railroad investigator discovers that there's more than meets the eye to a series of reported Indian attacks against the railroad.
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Don't Believe the Hype
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The B-western Overland Pacific documents the struggle to build a railroad and how the whites are just as brutal as the natives. It seems like an early try at political correctness, and you can't fault the filmmakers for having the best of intentions. Jock Mahoney headlines this frontier drama. Despite Mr. Mahoney's average amount of talent in the acting department, he does help bring subtle touches of realism to this picture. For example, when there is a brawl on the street and he brushes up against a building or a railing, we actually see dust fly. A lot of westerns are too clean; but the reality is that these old west towns are dirty and dusty.
I see that there are no reviews here so I'll add my two-cents. This was a very poor Western in just about every way. It deserves its 5.0 rating average. I usually like the stars, Jock Mahoney and Peggie Castle. Here they were attractive, anyway. Everything else about the film was cheap, unrealistic, actually embarrassing. Mahoney is known as a stunt man early in his career; here his fistfights were awkwardly staged acrobatic doings. Westerns that have battle-winning ploys at the end of throwing sticks of dynamite or lighting brush fires are a sure sign of a ludicrous movie, and the former was used here. The basic story (the bad guy's plot)seemed pretty thin and unworkable to me.