Overland Pacific

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.

For some reason I hadn't ticked this one against my reference bible (Phil Hardy's "Western Movies"); it was on UK TV's marvellous Talking Pictures free channel.

What a nasty story full of murders, treacherous former friend, saloon gal with heart of gold (murdered), cowardly sheriff (murdered), feisty heroine (Peggy Castle) sporting tight slacks (father is murdered); hero is supposedly a telegrapher but really a "railroad agent", former mate is chief crook conniving with the usual sinister townies to supply repeating rifles to the Comanches to cause mayhem so railroad is diverted to town so land values can increase (familiar?); Hardy mentions the awful colour (Color Corp. Of America) which is a bleached horror; (the cowardly, crooked sheriff is Chubby Johnson-playing against his usual comedy type-warmly remembered as the riverboat captain in "Bend of the River"); ticked it off as am an obsessive Western watcher-but will never see it again!

A B-movie western that delivers the goods when it comes to action. Jock Mahoney plays a guy investigating a spate of Indian attacks on a pioneering railroad and soon undercovers a minor conspiracy taking place. What occurs plotwise is unremarkable, but this is a film better than average thanks to the execution, which favours momentum and action over tired dialogue and romance scenes. There's a feisty heroine, treachery, a square-jawed hero and a whole host of vivid battle sequences that are staged well on a low budget. It's one of those entirely forgettable films that nonetheless entertains while it's on.

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.

People are shooting at each other almost nonstop (but usually miss) throughout this tough little western about building a railroad in the face of opposition from local Apaches directed with his usual terse efficiency by Fred Sears and full of cynical one-liners like "The sheriff caught me in the middle of a fascinating autopsy" and "You're sick, and the only cure for that is hanging".

Jock Mahoney was then billed as 'Jack', while perennial 'B' picture bad girl Peggie Castle is cast against type as feisty good girl in blouse and tight trousers described by saloon gal Adele Jergens as "the little princess".