Rails Into Laramie

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 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!

Seems to be a re-hash of Kansas Pacific with a lot of the same actors!

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.

I guess Audie Murphy was not available to play in this Jessie Hibbs' western ; Hibbs who was his fetish director - as Lon Chaney was with Tod Browning or Gregory Peck with Hank King - and Dan Duryea already faced Murphy in RIDE CLEAR OF DIABLO the very same year. So, replacing Audie Murphy by John Payne deserves to be noticed. And I did not remember Payne playing in Universal films either. That said, this western, even without the most decorated soldier in WW2, remains solid, taut, efficient enough to grab your attention. I did not watch it since a while and I am glad to see it again. A railroad western, a genre in the genre; as you also had posse westerns, military fort westerns, town under outlaws rule westerns, cattle baron or ruthless landlords vs rustlers westerns, indian wars westerns....