Western Union (1941) DVDRip (SiRiUs sHaRe)

Vance Shaw gives up outlawing and goes to work for the telegraph company; his brother Jack Slade leads outlaws trying to prevent the company connecting the line between Omaha and Salt Lake City. Lots of Indian fighting and gunplay.
Robert Young ... Richard Blake
Randolph Scott ... Vance Shaw
Dean Jagger ... Edward Creighton
Virginia Gilmore ... Sue Creighton
John Carradine ... Doc Murdoch
Slim Summerville ... Cookie
Chill Wills ... Homer Kettle
Barton MacLane ... Jack Slade
Russell Hicks ... Provisional Governor, Territory of Nebraska
Victor Kilian ... Charlie
Minor Watson ... Pat Grogan
George Chandler ... Herb
Chief John Big Tree ... Chief Spotted Horse (as Chief Big Tree)
Chief Thundercloud ... Indian leader
Director: Fritz Lang
Runtime: 95 mins
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034384/
Codecs:
Video : 639 MB, 976 Kbps, 25.0 fps, 512*384 (4:3), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4,
Audio : 60 MB, 92 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 1 channels, 0x55 = Lame MP3, VBR,
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While it doesn't quite reach the giddy heights of 'Rancho Notorious', Lang's Western is still an excellent example of his art within formulaic genres. Given his career history until he reached America in studio bound, mono films, it is a surprise that his Westerns were so successful in conventional terms. But they were. Even the least remarkable, 'The Return of Frank James' is worth a viewing. Like that film, here too the colour cinematography is glorious, the leads sympathetic, the story exciting and involving.
Many of Lang's characteristic themes are here: fate, guilt/innocence, crime, and cruelty amongst them. Western fans will relish the strong part given to veteran heavy Barton MacLane as Scott's brother Jack Slade (even though the resemblance is hardly striking) - the sneering MacLane's face in close up, daubed in war paint, is a real sight to behold, a highlight of the film..
More unusually for Lang is the use of a comic sub plot, as Herman the cook struggles against the vicissitudes of his employment. Even today this tale of woe remains amusing making one regret, perhaps, that the director didn't go down this route more often. Lightly handled, too, is the romance triangle. Scott and Young make an excellent pairing in this context, and again the scenes are lightly amusing. This sort of play is more reminiscent of another German emigre, Lubitsch, than the more severe Lang.
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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.
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If Western Union isn't exactly the real story of the construction of the Transcontinental Telegraph, it certainly does capture the spirit and dedication of the people involved with the project.
Dean Jagger is the man in charge and one fine day he's thrown from a horse and sustains some fractured ribs. An outlaw on the run, Randolph Scott, finds Jagger and is ready to steal his horse, but changes his mind and brings Jagger to help. Later on he's hired by Western Union and works for Jagger.
Jagger also hires a young easterner played by Robert Young who's an engineer. Young is doing one of his few loan out films away from MGM for 20th Century Fox. Both Young and Scott become friends, but rivals for Jagger's sister Virginia Gilmore.
Western Union has plenty of action, enough to satisfy any western fans. The telegraph crew has to deal with outlaws, Indians, and your garden variety labor troubles.
Slim Summerville as the timid cook and Victor Killian as the frontier character assigned to guard him have some of the funniest scenes. They both provide some good comic relief.
Fritz Lang got good performances from his cast and kept the film moving briskly along. Western Union is solid western entertainment.
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# Studio publicity noted that Fox contract star Henry Fonda had served as technical adviser on the film, due to his experience as a young man working as a lineman. Fonda's "technical advisory" capacity was most certainly a publicity fiction, and in any event Fonda was not credited on the film itself.
# Originally, Laird Cregar was cast in this film in an undetermined role (possibly that of Doc Murdoch), but was unable to do the film due to an unfinished other project. He was replaced by George 'Gabby' Hayes, but Hayes then became ill and was himself replaced.