Rails Into Laramie

A railroad sends an agent (John Payne) to Laramie to try to find out who is behind the efforts to stop the railroad from building its line into the area.

An enjoyable railroad western that is brisk and keeps your attention throughout. There's a nice buddy angle between John Payne and Dan Duryea, but when Duryea realises Payne isn't going to turn a blind eye to his crooked ways, he chooses to get rid of him the hard way. There's fistfights, attempted riots and Lee Van Cleef snarling with his trigger-happy fingers. There's also an interesting women's jury sequence. But what stands out for me is the wonderful looking trains; the finale with a shootout and a fistfight on top of the train is an exciting one. Mari Blanchard sizzles as Payne's love interest.

A satisfying railroad western that makes you feel good. Nice title song sung by Rex Allen.

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........

A rebel soldier, John Payne, is assigned by his commander in chief to find who is behind the flop in the building of a railway in Laramie. The army official finds alcoholic people and drink plentiful in the railway workers. He also meets a beautiful ally, Mari Blanchard, an exdancer and owner of a bustly saloon along with Dan Duryea, an ex-colleague of Payne who is behind it all. As Duryea is really a booze peddler who along with his hoodlum, Lee Van Cleef, deliver alcohol to the labourers who are building the railroad. Both of them tangle into a twisted confrontation and at the end a thrilling fight takes place aboard a train. This is the saga of the man who blazed the trail for the iron horse across the wide frontier.

Run-of-the-mill Universal International Pictures with usual elements, such as noisy action, thrills, crossfire, drama, romance and some spectacular action scenes on a train. There is even some historical remark, as the jury who judges Dan Duryea is formed by women, and resulted to be actually the first served by women in the state of Wyoming 1870 . Stars John Payne, one of the popular actors of the forties and fifties, today a little forgotten. He starred the classy Miracle in 34th street and performed all kinds of genres as Noir: Slighly scarlet, Kansas City confidential, The vanquished, Adventure: Raiders of seven seas, Crosswinds, Tripoli, Iceland and Western : Santa Fe passage, Silver lode, Tennessee's partner, The Road to Denver. He also starred various Tv series and episodes as The restless gun and Zane Grey. Payne is well accompanied by a good support cast as the prestigious Dan Duryea here co-starring , the habitual baddie Lee Van Cleef pre-Sergio Leone, James Griffith, Harry Shannon, George Chandler, Stephen Chase, Douglas Kennedy and Joyce Mackenzie.

The motion picture titled Rails into Laramie was professionally directed by Jesse Hibbs though with no much enthusiasm. He directed a lot of films and several episodes of notorious TV episodes. His fetish actor was Audie Murphy, whom directed in known and big boxoffice films as To hell and back, World in my corner, Medal of honor, Ride a crooked trail. Rating 5/10. Passable and acceptable but average.

Director Jesse Hibbs does not mean much to me but he did some extraordinary TV work, notably directing 44 PERRY MASON episodes.

RAILS INTO LARAMIE presents an interesting premise: a misbehaving US Army sergeant is sent to restore order and get the railroad operational in Laramie, where crime kingpin and saloon owner Shanessy (smug Dan Duryea) is pulling all stops to prevent it.

Yep, interesting but not exceedingly believable premise. Cinematography OK, screenplay requires considerable extension of disbelief, acting moderately wooden.

I guess I'll forget it fast enough. 6/10.

In this quality B western rails are going into Laramie, Wyoming, but they're not leaving. That's because saloon owner Dan Duryea with the implicit connivance of the town's merchants is finding all kinds of ways to keep the railroad workers spending their pay in their town and not getting any work done. All this is troubling the railroad owners and troubleshooter John Payne is detached from the army to deal with the trouble.

Rails Into Laramie takes elements from the DeMille classic Union Pacific and Destry Rides Again and a nice story is concocted. Payne is a stalwart no nonsense hero who when he's not on the job is a bit of a hell raiser himself. But when he's given this job he's quite serious.

Dan Duryea the chief villain is married to Joyce McKenzie, but has his partner in the saloon Mari Blanchard on the side. He's also got to do his bidding treacherous telegrapher Douglas Kennedy, bully boy railroad worker Charles Horvath to intimidate the others, and a pair of killer brothers Myron Healey and Lee Van Cleef.

If you know the plots of both the previous mentioned films than you know the result in the end. What I really liked about Rails Into Laramie was the fact that Wyoming was organized as a territory at the same time as the transcontinental railroad was coming through and women got the vote. They also got some other rights and that fact is integrated into the plot.

One of John Payne's good B westerns from the Fifties and the rest of the cast supports him well. And Dan Duryea is always excellent.