Train to Tombstone

I saw this movie in the late '50's on a double feature with A STAR IS BORN,fo all things. And it still stands out sharp in my mind as the worst movie i have ever seen. The cast was a set of cliches as a kind of ripoff of Stagecoach, and there was only one set, the interior of a railroad car. All the action was out the windows, and entirely by rear projection. That was so bad that when the Indians swept past the windows, they must have been 50 feet high. And when someone sent a flock of sheep to stop the train, you saw a flock of sheep, but no tracks, no train. The incompetence of the production reached a kind of perfection.

Elements of the plot of the classic John Ford film Stagecoach are to be found in Train To Tombstone where 90% of the film takes place in a passenger car on said train. In fact star Don Barry joins the trip just as John Wayne as the Ringo Kid did in Stagecoach, after the train as pulled out of the station heading for Tombstone.

And as in Stagecoach the passengers are a good cross section of western America and all are not as they seem to be. Considering that Lippert Pictures is a low budget outfit they did not do a half bad job in staging both a real Indian attack and an outlaw made up to look like Indians attack.

Wally Vernon had a nice role and a funny one as corset salesman looking to keep waists from showing unnecessary waste. I also enjoyed Minna Phillips as the inebriated spinster aunt who likes to commune with all kinds of spirits.

Train To Tombstone is economical on plot and filled with action, your perfect B western.

It's a motley assortment of passengers aboard the train. Tom Neal is a new doctor, headed out west to set up practice. Judith Allen is off to marry an army officer she's never met, accompanied by her Irish aunt; there's a lady off to open a gambling house, a pastor, and even a comical corset salesman in the person of Wally Vernon. The conductor is worried about bandits. They're carrying a big shipment of gold. Finally, rider Don Barry shoots a man out of his saddle and climbs aboard.

There will be suspicion, Indian attacks, and the same mountains go by the train every inch of the way -- I suppose they figured no one would notice. This late B western, released through Lippert has a few glitches in its story-telling mechanism, but one thing it doesn't lack is excitement. Director William Berke knows how to direct his performers in roles that go just beyond stereotype, and long-time western movie editor Carl Pierson keeps the cutting rate fast.

Don't be too hard with this little western please; it is short, sharp, not boring at all and also bringing some suspense. I have seen far far worse. It is not the worst of director William Berke either. I prefer it to the singing westerns starring Roy Rogers or other ones starring the likes of Allan Rocky Lane, Johnny Mc Brown or Ken Maynard. It could have been more action packed, I admit. But that's a good time waster. William Burke, and not only him, brought us many of this kind in the late forties and early fifties. I hope to find more of them from my library in the future. I bought so many of tose films thirty years ago.... Tons of them.

TRAIN TO TOMBSTONE is one of the films Don Barry made at Lippert after leaving Republic. These films are often a bit different from the norm (Red Desert, for instance...) and usually have excellent supporting casts. Barry wrote the story for this film also, and it's cleverly constructed as we have a train that throws together a diverse lot of people, PLUS we have the suspense of knowing the someone on the train is a criminal, PLUS we have the added suspense of knowing that the train will possibly be attacked along the way, but we don't know for sure or when or how or by whom. So there are a few different levels of suspense, yet most of the film can be shot on a small, static set. Barry, considered a young Cagney when he first came on the scene before his western star days, was always one of the better actors among series western stars, and he commands attention well here. Robert Lowery, with added mustache and now in his "supporting actor" days, adds more tension to the proceedings as a marshal overseeing the train (or is he?), comedian Wally Vernon is funny as a salesman trying to sell corsets to Indian women, and Tom Neal plays a doctor, although his character is not really developed very much. While it's easy to fault the film (there are external shots of bad guys chasing the train, but usually there's just a mediocre projection screen out the window that looks about as real as the one used in THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, and in one scene the characters are firing guns out the window at the projection screen!), if you come to it with enough willing suspension of disbelief, it's an exciting ride, and it only takes less than an hour. The same director and four stars also made I SHOT BILLY THE KID the same year--one wonders if they were made back to back, although Berke and three of the four stars were Lippert regulars anyway. Overall, this is solid b-movie entertainment. The train plot device was a nice change of pace, and anyone who has enjoyed Don Barry's work in other films should check this one out.