Western Union (1941)

"Western Union" as one might expect, is about the building of the Western Union telegraph line to the west. It takes place in 1861 at the out break of the American Civil War. In fact a note from Abraham Lincoln is read wishing the company good luck and expressing the need for coast to coast communication as soon as possible.Outlaw on the run Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) saves the life of surveyor Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger). Later, Vance goes to work for Western Union unaware that Creighton is now the boss. Creighton promises Shaw that their previous meeting will be kept confidential.Tenderfoot surveyor from the east Richard Blake (Robert Young) arrives on the scene. Both he and Shaw pursue Creighton's comely young sister Sue (Virginia Gilmore.A group of renegades professing allegiance to the south and led by outlaw Jack Slade (Barton MacLane) begin raids on the Western Union camps stealing their horses and cattle. Vance goes after them and discovers that the gang doing the raiding are his former gang. Eventually this leads to a confrontation between Vance and Slade."Western Union" is directed by Fritz Lang who had a soft spot for American Westerns. He gives us plenty of action and color. There are encounters with a herd of buffalo, a Indian attack, a spectacular fire and a gunfight finale to enjoy. The Technicolor photography is breath taking showing long lines of telegraph poles stretched across the open prairie, a colorful town that has more than just the usual main street, an opening sequence showing Scott galloping through a herd of buffalo across the hills escaping a pursuing posse. Perhaps the most spectacular color sequence is the fire set to the camp by the renegades.Scott is excellent as the man with a past as is Jagger (with hair) as the tough no nonsense boss. Robert Young though giving a competent performance seems to me to be miscast in a western setting. Others in the cast include John Carradine as the camp doctor, Slim Summerville along for comedy relief, as the camp cook and Chill Wills as Homer, one of the linemen. Chief Big Tree, Chief Thundercloud and Iron Eyes Cody appear in various Indian roles.An under rated western to be sure.

Western Union is directed by Fritz Lang and written by Robert Carson who adapts from the Zane Grey novel of the same name. It stars Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Barton MacLane and Virginia Gilmore. Music is by David Buttolph and R.H. Bassett, and cinematography by Edward Cronjager and Allen M. Davey. It's a Technicolor production out of 20th Century Fox and locations used for the shoot were House Rock Canyon, Arizona, and Kanab and Zion National Park in Utah. Plot finds Scott as outlaw Vance Shaw, who in an attempt to reform himself joins the company wiring the Great Plains for telegraph service in 1861. However, the Western Union is meeting resistance, from both the Native Americans and Vance's old gang, while there's also a love triangle forming between Vance, Sue Creighton (Gilmore) and tenderfoot Richard Blake (Young). It's all going to come to a head...Fritz Lang's second Western after The Return of Frank James (1940), Western Union is at times exciting, always brisk, but lacking a claustrophobic edge so befitting the director's trade marks. Which is surprising considering this was the one Western he had the most control over. But with an almost patriotic fervour pulsing throughout and the outdoor locations wonderfully utilised, it's a Western movie that's easy to revisit for further inspection. The final third takes the film down a darker road, where it lifts the film out of the conventional story rut, and Lang and Cronjager produce memorable scenes and camera work to seal the deal. Cast wise it's Scott who is the stand out, as the man trying to do good as his past closes in, and Jagger provides earthy appeal as Western Union boss man Edward Creighton. Gilmore is weak and Young, while adequate playing a tenderfoot, just never convinces as things get serious. Best to look at the minor support slots for acting value, where the likes of John Carradine, Slim Summerville and Chill Wills provide some quality. 7/10

I first saw this film in the theater way back in the 40s when I was a kid and always remembered the ending. There is nothing like the first impression but some movies are always a treat each time they are viewed. Something just resonates with them. This is one of those films and I agree with another reviewer who said Fritz Lang should have directed more westerns. To add to it I have always liked Randolph Scott and Robert Young. In fact, Robert Young stars in what I consider my favorite movie if I have to name just one, not an easy thing to do. That film is Northwest Passage. It led me to the superb historical novels of Kenneth Roberts. Western Union likewise led me to reading Zane Grey's novel which, in this case turned out to be one of those rare cases where I like the movie better than the novel. Not that Grey's novel is a bad one; I just like the movie story better. The movie in no way resembles the novel. It is a completely different tale, one of the biggest departures from a book I have seen.I can't add much to the other reviews except to say I agree with many of them. I, too, wish it would be released on DVD. "Whatever happened to Randolph Scott happened to the best of me."

I doubt if the real story of the development of Western Union would ever have gained a real audience. Instead of talking about the building of the telegraph system out west, it was the story of board rooms, dominated by one of the most interesting (and disliked) of the great "Robber Barons": Jay Gould. Gould picked up the struggling company and turned it into a communication giant - and part of his attempt at a national railway system to rival Vanderbilt's. But this, while interesting, is not as exciting as the story of the laying of the telegraph lines themselves. At least, that is how audiences would see it. Jay Gould died in 1892. Had he lived into the modern era, and invested in Hollywood, he probably would have agreed to that assessment too.The film deals with how the laying of the telegraph system is endangered by Indians, spurred on by one Jack Slade (Barton MacLane). Slade, a desperado, is not happy with the development of a communication system that will certainly put a crimp in his abilities to evade the police in the territories. He is confronted by the man in charge of the laying of the telegraph wires, Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger), Creighton's associate Richard Blake (Robert Young), and a quasi-lawman Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott), who is Slade's brother. Blake, an Easterner with little understanding of the West, is romancing Creighton's sister Sue (Virginia Gilmore), but finds it hard to get used to his new surroundings. But he does become a close friend of Shaw, especially in trying to confront Slade.Slade was a real Western criminal, by the way, and the subject of a section of Mark Twain's ROUGHING IT. He was hanged in the 1870s. But he did not have any involvement in stirring up Indians against railroads or telegraph companies. However, MacLane makes him a memorably evil, and totally vicious type. His killing of one of the major characters is done suddenly and from behind - and he views the corpse as though he has just got rid of an annoyance. But Lang is responsible for that, as well as other touches. Look at the sequence with Chill Wills, where he is on a telegraph pole repairing it. He spits tobacco juice several times while talking to Young, who gets a little splattered. Then there is an Indian attack which we watch from the ground level. At the conclusion, Young suddenly gets splattered again, but it's not brown but red that covers him. He looks up at the pole's top, and there is Wills with an Indian arrow through him.It is an exciting film to watch, and well worth catching.