Purely Joyful Movie!

I wanted to but couldn't!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

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

Apparently no less a director than Anthony Mann left this project after the star, James Stewart, insisted on including accordion playing as part of his main character or perhaps of views he held about the script. The helm was instead taken eventually by James Neilson, most of whose career was spent in television. The film itself, together perhaps with Two Rode Together (1961), is seen as something of disappointment when seen alongside other great Stewart westerns of the 50's.Stewart plays a disgraced railroad man, reduced to playing music for nickels and dimes to help ends meet, until he is called back into action by his old boss to help solve some robberies. Chief among the suspects are his younger brother, The Utica Kid (Audie Murphy) now embroiled with an outlaw gang led by the unbalanced Whitey (Dan Duryea). Despite the variable reputation of this film I thoroughly enjoyed it, not least because of the plotting by Borden Chase and the excellent and large supporting case which also included Jack Elam, Paul Fix, Dianne Foster and Jay C Flippen. There's a part too for a now slightly older Brandon de Wilde, most famous for his role as the hero-worshiping youngster in Shane. After watching Audie Murphy just previously in the disappointing, much lower budgeted late vehicle Apache Rifles (1964), suddenly with this film the range seemed aright again. Murphy does an excellent turn as the conflicted younger brother, holding his screen presence well against the as always excellent Stewart, who, by this time, works his central role effortlessly. In fact Murphy's characteristic, taciturn, screen persona actually does the other main co-star Duryea a disservice, by emphasising some scenery-chewing elsewhere by the actor no doubt intent on showing Whitey's instability.Stewart gets to play his beloved accordion three or four times - although it must be admitted that, by the time it gets burnt in the climactic confrontation, one grows little tired of hearing his repertoire of, mostly, 'You Won't Get Far Without the Railroad'. Most obviously, the longish opening Mclintock-esque scene, one suspects, was inserted principally to showcase Stewart's playing, although his charm always carries such musical longeurs along. Away from the star's turn, the otherwise excellent composer Dimitri Tiomkin is hard put to incorporate the music meaningfully into the rest of the score. With the cheerful and interruptive accordion one looks in vain too for the wheezing ominousness which marks out, say, Harmonica's instrumental playing in Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Stewart's accordion does, however, play a final a part later in filling out an element of Murphy's moral character in what, one must admit, is a very effective, subtle scene. But overall it's a minor, idiosyncratic, element in a film which is still excellent viewing, a production taking full advantage of a big budget and good sized cast, and one thoroughly recommended. An obvious question remains: why is it called 'Night Passage' when there is hardly any day-for-night work, and no significant travel made in the dark?

Night Passage is a great western. I think that was actually performed by Mann. It is perhaps the best example of molded form of filmmaking that was the great director Mann. James Nielsen, I doubt not only lent his name to the producers feuding with Mann and had James Stewart as the big star of westerns, so very hard to decide about the movie. The photography is gorgeous. A very good story, making the female characters of the plot have a very special moment in cinema, with two roles extremely well designed and which actresses are perfect in their performances. Brandon De Wilde here can repeat his performance in Shane, another brilliant George Stevens western. The actors are splendid, except that it takes Audie Murphy was not considered suitable actor for the role of Utica Kidd. Dan Duryea who had shone in Winchester 73, shows this film because it was one of the most requested supporting westerns. Particularly consider that Nigh Passage is really a film directed by Mann. Magnificent.

Night Passage should have been the sixth Western collaboration between James Stewart and director Anthony Mann. Mann, however, withdrew from the project because he found the script weak and because he disagreed with the casting of Audie Murphy as Stewart's co-star.Stewart plays Grant McLaine, a former troubleshooter for railroad company. Grant lost his job when he was suspected of dishonest collusion with a bandit known as the Utica Kid, and, unable to find alternative employment, has earned a living playing the accordion. (Stewart himself was a talented performer on this instrument). Grant's former boss, Ben Kimball, however, is in trouble. His payroll has been robbed several times by the Utica Kid and his gang, and his workers are threatening to leave the job if they don't get paid soon. Grant therefore accepts the job of taking $10,000 to them by train.I think that Mann's reservations about this film were justified, even though it led to the rupture of his relationship with Stewart. Following their disagreement they never worked together again (and according to some versions of the story never spoke to one another again). There was certainly a suspicion in some quarters that Audie Murphy's career as a film star owed more to his distinguished war record than it did to any acting talent. This viewpoint was not always to be proved correct; Murphy was, for example, excellent in "The Red Badge of Courage", a film in which he was able to draw upon his own wartime experiences. "Night Passage", however, is not one of his better performances.As regards the script, Mann was quite correct to describe it as weak. The earlier Stewart-Mann Westerns ("The Naked Spur" is a good example) were noted for their dark tone, similar to the pessimistic, cynical tone of contemporary film noir, with Stewart normally playing a flawed, ambiguous character rather than the sort of clean-cut heroes he had played in his earlier career. They can, in fact, be seen as prefiguring the "revisionist" Westerns of the sixties and early seventies. "Night Passage" lacks the depth and sense of moral ambiguity which characterised Mann's Westerns. Like Howard Kemp, Stewart's character in "The Naked Spur", Grant McLaine is hiding a secret, namely that the Utica Kid is really his younger brother Lee, which is why he allowed the Kid to escape on a previous occasion. (Presumably the family couldn't decide which side they were on during the Civil War, so named one son after a Northern general and the other after a Confederate one). The film does not, however, make the most of the dramatic possibilities of this plot line, and there is little ambiguity about Grant, essentially a misunderstood clean-cut hero who hopes to redeem his brother by turning him away from a life of crime.After Mann left the production, the film was directed by James Neilson. Although Neilson was to direct a few more films in the sixties, such as "The Moon-Spinners", he worked mainly in television, and "Night Passage" was in fact his first feature film. The pacing of the film is often slack and the storyline can be confusing; it struck me that it might well have been improved with a more experienced cinema director such as Mann at the helm. Like "The Naked Spur" it was filmed against some striking Colorado landscapes, but the photography never seems as effective as it did in the earlier film.There are some better things about the film; James Stewart's own performance is perfectly adequate, and he receives good support from some of the other actors, such as Dan Duryea as the Kid's fellow-gangster Whitey. "Night Passage" must, however, rank as one of the less memorable of Stewart's Westerns, not in the same class as his best work with Mann or some of his later films in the genre such as "Cheyenne Autumn" or "Firecreek". 5/10