Night Passage
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Movie Reviews of Night Passage
Movie Review: GREAT ESCAPISM
Summary: 4 Stars
I always liked this movie of James Stewart with Audie Murphy as his younger estranged brother. Nice escapist fun. Of course, Dan Duryea steals the movie in his role as outlaw chief.Movie Review: night passage
Summary: 4 Stars
Fairly good story,with an interesting little twist at the end of the movie which helps the overall story,but mostly the photography and beauty of Colorado are most impressive .Movie Review: COLORADO, JAMES STEWART AND AN ACCORDION DON'T MAKE A MOVIE
Summary: 3 Stars
In consequence of a very weak screenplay, NIGHT PASSAGE is the kind of movie you forget in two days. If you are a movie buff, you'll maybe remember in a few years two or three scenes of the film like the verbal duels between Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea or James Stewart singing with his accordion but that's about all, I'm afraid. I now understand why Anthony Mann left this production after the first day of shooting.
Many characters of NIGHT PASSAGE don't have any consistency at all. For instance, can someone tell me what's the exact function of Miss Vittles, the old lady with the jennies, in the film apart of saying hello to James Stewart and indicating him a shortcut through the mountain. And Charlotte Drew, is she in love with James Stewart or Audie Murphy ? And what are the psychological motivations of Verna Kimball ? And ... so on.
I say it again, this is not director James Neilson's fault if NIGHT PASSAGE is nothing else than an average western. Neilson filmed the Colorado sceneries with professionalism and humbleness, NIGHT PASSAGE was his first movie and he dedicated most of his career to television afterwards. No, it's entirely due to the script's weakness. However, there were a few good ideas, not exploited, in it, like the rivalry between the two brothers or the metaphor of the tunnel in the mountain, excavated by miners. Too bad.
A DVD zone could have been much better.
Movie Review: The End of the Line
Summary: 3 Stars
The film begins with a lone rider out west. Men are building a railroad. There is a small camp for the workers. Grant McLaine plays the accordion to entertain people. He was blacklisted by the powerful railroads. There is conflict between the wives and the hostesses. The conflict escalates. Mining goes on in the hills. A man on a horse chases a young boy, Grant gets involved. The conversations tell about the characters. Ben Kimball is in his private railroad car. There is a plan to avoid another payroll robbery. Can Grant be trusted? The train runs along the hills of Colorado following the river (level ground). The path had to be blasted from the sides of the mountain.
The band of outlaws have a hideout in a ghost town. They wait to rob the payroll train. There is conflict over strategy. Whitey abducts Kimball's wife for ransom as there is no payroll. They take Joey too. Will the workers leave without their pay? Grant McLaine infiltrates the outlaw camp, then resolves his conflict with Concho. The brothers have conflicting principles. [Singing in a crime story?] Then a new man shows up and the fight starts. There is a chase and shooting. Will somebody help Grant? The conflict is ironed out by the usual means in this western morality tale.
Note how the "Theatrical Trailer" shows carefully edited scenes. Would this kind of story have been possible in the 1940s?
Movie Review: Might Have Been
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a pretty intriguing picture if only because it's a case of a potential classic that didn't come off. It marked the beginning of Anthony Mann's decline as a director; he walked off just as shooting began, the same stunt he would pull on "Spartacus" two years later. James Stewart, who was his own producer for most of the Fifties, was furious, as well he might have been, and never worked with Mann again, despite their wonderful collaboration on eight previous movies. Its a shame the two of them couldn't have cooled off, put their heads together, and ironed out the script problems. There is some beautiful and novel material in "Night Passage," the story of an outlaw gang preying on a new railroad in the Colorado mining territory. Great performances by everone, especially Audie Murphy. It just needed a stronger hand at the helm to pull it all together.