Good idea lost in the noise

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

In this western from Universal-International, Audie Murphy and James Stewart are anomalies to what they had been previous to this time. While Murphy was usually a straight guy on the right side of the law, here, though small and baby-faced, is a mean outlaw, evidently scared of no one. Stewart, who was often portrayed as a fine, upstanding, family man in other movies, is in this movie a rough man and temperamental when he had to be. They showed the viewing public that they were versatile actors.. The actors who portrayed the outlaws were definitely adept in their roles. Jack Elam was somewhat this way. Robert Wilke was very much this way, not at all atypical to the "High Noon" outlaw he portrayed. (If he was as mean in real life as he was on the screen, I do not see how he could not have not have been bitterly hated and strongly feared.) Dan Duryea was his mean, boisterous, somewhat obnoxious villain self. Yes, these men fit perfectly into the outlaw mold. As for the other players in the movie, Elaine Stewart and Dianne Foster were definitely appealing, and the then-young teenager Brandon DeWilde showed that he was capable at an early age at acting. The Colorado scenery and the breathtaking Technicolor added much to the movie, naturally. The storyline is not at all complex. A man (Stewart) who had once been fired by the railroad, is now rehired and must take a payroll to the employees who have been anxiously waiting for their pay and are strongly on the verge of quitting. Stewart is on the train-the night passage-when the outlaw band robs the train, only to find that no money is in the safe nor anywhere else on the train. Beautiful color, beautiful ladies, beautiful scenery, mean outlaws, and excellent acting by Murphy and Stewart. What more would anybody want in a western

RELEASED IN 1957 and directed by James Neilson, "Night Passage" stars Jimmy Stewart as a fired railroad man rehired and trusted to secretly carry a $10,000 payroll, even though he is suspected of being connected to outlaws (whose leader is played by Dan Duryea). One of the outlaws happens to be his younger brother, the Utica Kid (Audie Murphy). Dianne Foster and Elaine Stewart are on hand in the feminine department.People say "Night Passage" is akin to Anthony Mann's 50's Westerns, but that's a bunch of hooey. True, Mann was originally slated to direct it, but he declined because he felt the script was lousy, arguing that nobody would understand it. He also thought it would be a stretch to have the 5'5"Audie Murphy play the brother of 6'3" James Stewart. While the height of the two actors is inconsequential (many families have a 'runt' in the litter, so what?), Mann was deadly accurate about the story, which is too talky and absurdly over-plotted. The story's so unnecessarily complicated that it doesn't work up any steam until the last 12 minutes, although there are a few quality moments here and there.Mann's "Bend of the River" (1952), "The Far Country" (1954), "The Man from Laramie" (1955) and the outstanding "The Last Frontier "(1955) are all infinitely superior to "Night Passage." Yet it's not just an issue of a convoluted screenplay, although that's the main problem, "Night Passage" is also marred by old-fashioned hokeyness that those Mann flicks generally elude. The opening dance sequence and Stewart's occasional warbling with the accordion are two examples, although I could live with both if the story were compelling. Still, there's enough good here to maybe make it worth watching for those who don't mind 50's Westerns, such as the mind-blowing Elaine Stewart, the magnificent train, the scenic locations and the action sequences, like the climax. THE MOVIE RUNS 90 minutes and was shot in Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Colorado, and Buttermilk Country, Inyo National Forest, California. WRITERS: Borden Chase wrote the script based on the story by Norman A. Fox. ADDITIONAL CAST: Jay C. Flippen plays the railroad mogul and Brandon De Wilde (the kid from "Shane") an adolescent friend of the protagonists. GRADE: C-

This is a good western, though it lacks the atmosphere and pace Anthony Mann (originally slated to direct) would have brought to it. Then again, there was a reason he didn't direct it. (He walked at the 11th hour, causing a rift between him and Stewart, who was getting a percentage of the profits.)The film, to me, has a kind of deadness at the center. I don't think it really has a stylistic concept, a way of telling this particular story that would make it intriguing. Even with a flawed concept, the original director might have given it all a unity, purpose, or vision. This is just filmed in a workmanlike fashion. We seem never to get inside the story.In a way, this is the Stewart-Mann-Borden Chase formula re-worked one too many times. There are elements here from all the previous westerns, and it had to get tired, eventually. James Stewart is beginning to look old and wiry, rather than the young-middle-aged leading man. That's okay but it's not in keeping with the plot. Dan Duryea is here, playing almost the same psycho he played in Winchester 73. The good brother/bad brother theme is back, too. Supposedly, one of the attractions of the film for James Stewart was that he got to play the accordion and sing; in a rather unbelievable story point, he plays a man who entertains the railroad people. The cast is quite good, overall, and it must have seemed a good idea to Universal, at the time, to have not merely a James Stewart western, or an Audie Murphy western, but a Stewart-Murphy western. Shame it was just okay, not great.I enjoyed Olive Carey in her scenes with Stewart, and the location.

With "Night Passage", you get Jimmy Stewart uncharacteristically playing an accordion and singing a few songs, and Audie Murphy in another one of his baby face villain roles. You also have Dan Duryea in a co-starring effort, but you have to wonder if he might have been hard of hearing during filming. He shouts every single one of his lines except one, as I was so curious about his over the top manner that I started to keep track. It actually distracted me at times because I kept wondering why he was yelling all the time.I also had to wonder why Jimmy Stewart appeared to be out of breath after his first encounter with villain Concho (Robert J. Wilke) while saving young Joey (Brandon De Wilde) from a thrashing. At fifty one, perhaps he wasn't in as good shape as he should have been to be riding horses and chasing down bad guys.As for the story, it's fairly formulaic with Stewart and Murphy as brothers on opposite sides of the law, a theme done countless times in Westerns. There's not much new to add here either, and as I've noted earlier, Murphy doesn't have the face to be taken seriously as a villain, the same being true for his portrayal as gunman Gant in the 1959 film "No Name On The Bullet". Try picturing Roy Rogers as a bad guy. See, it just doesn't work.It was cool to see veteran Jack Elam as part of the Whitey Harbin gang, and whenever I see Hugh Beaumont in a non-Ward Cleaver role I have to wonder what the 'Beav' is up to. Not a bad film, with some great Colorado scenery on display, but truthfully, the most emotion this got out of me was seeing Grant McLaine's (Stewart) accordion go up in flames. That was hard for this Polish boy.Say, here's something to wonder about. As Miss Charlotte (Dianne Foster) pines for The Utica Kid (Murphy) throughout the film, and she finally gets to hear that he wants to marry her, why isn't she all torn up with the way the gun battle plays out? And brother Grant just moves right in?Ready for another good brother/bad brother match up with a railroad theme? Try 1949's "The Last Bandit" with Wild Bill Elliott and Forrest Tucker. No accordions in that one though, you'll have to hum.