.
.
Outstanding
.
.
I have always loved Denver and Rio Grande. I saw it when I was a small boy (Bronze Age) and have never stopped admiring it. What really struck me as a lad and still does is the utterly spectacular crash, filmed without special effects, as it happened, with two locomotives smashing at full speed into each other on the single track. In these days when even railroad Westerns like the recent 3:10 to Yuma can barely afford a train and have to fudge one with two inches of track and some smoke behind a saloon, to crash two for a minor 50s Western seems incredible profligacy. But it’s great.
.
.
Kapow!
.
Railroads have always played a key part in Westerns. Usually, railway companies were the villains, stealing honest settlers’ land and being resisted by the likes of Jesse James, the Daltons or whoever (all fiction, of course). But in this one, the DRG are the good guys. In reality, the D&RG and rival Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF) were equally rapacious and ruthless, but in this movie it’s the ATSF who are the villains. They must be because they have a bearded Sterling Hayden as their boss and slimy, smiling Lyle Bettger as his sidekick.
.
.
Hayden really tough
.
The ATSF is not named. The rival line is called the Cañon City & San Juan RR, and indeed the CS&SJ was the proxy for the Santa Fe.
The movie still has a hell of a lot going for it. Filmed in Technicolor on the Durango-to-Silverton railroad in Colorado through the gorge – and by the way you can still take that ride, and absolutely wonderful it is too – with Ray Rennahan behind the lens, it is as spectacular as it is attractive, though it is true that there are too many studio shots on sound stages.
.
.
There is a cracking pace to the action. Director Byron Haskins had been a cinematographer in the silent era, then had directed Disney’s first live-action picture, the 1950 Treasure Island (the one with Robert Newton as Long John Silver). Later he did The War of the Worlds. He was involved in 18 Westerns, from the cinematography on the silent Broken Chains in 1922 to directing a 1958 TV episode of The Californians. Denver and Rio Grande in ’52 was his last feature film Western and a worthy finale it was too. The film is a rip-snorter.
.
.
Great ride
.
True, the writing is a bit sensational. Frank Gruber has been described by the Great Guru Brian Garfield as “a numbed pulp magazine veteran of every known cliché.” But hell, it’s a 50s Western with Sterling Hayden. Of course it’s clichéd. And it sure wasn’t corny to a boy back then. I can vouch for that. It was just plain gripping. And anyway, as all Western fans know, there is a fine line between cliché and respect for convention/affectionate quotation, and this falls on the right side of that line.
Hayden was, as you know, a veteran himself. He was in 30 Westerns (including TV episodes), some of them real Poverty Row clunkers, and he hated most of them. A pity because he was good in them, whether as the hero or heavy. D&RG was only his second oater, in fact. He was in another railroad-building flick, Kansas Pacific, the following year, another favorite of mine, and is pretty good in that, as the goody this time. He is probably best known Westernwise for playing the title role in distinctly oddball Johnny Guitar. In D&RG you see how tall and tough he was and really quite fearsome as the very bad guy.
.
.
Looks like Silverton
.
We all know, and love to hate, Lyle Bettger. He was one of the best smiling villains ever. The Iago of the West. Here, as Johnny Buff, he wears range duds but he was really at his best in a fancy silk vest. With his blond hair and Teutonic looks he would have been perfect as a Nazi SS officer but he did a lot of Westerns, almost always as the seriously slimy bad guy. He was in 61 film and TV oaters, from 1952 to 1970 (he died in 2003), and D&RG was his first Western feature. You may remember him as Ike Clanton in Gunfight at the OK Corral. I liked him as the villain in The Great Sioux Uprising. Hell, I liked him everywhere.
On the other side, the goodies, we have Edmond O’Brien as the hero. He was ever so slightly miscast, I think, as action lead, though it is one of his most famous Western roles. I remember him most for his crazed Confederate officer in Rio Conchos, his Dutton Peabody in Liberty Valance and of course his outstanding Sykes in The Wild Bunch (by which time he was still only in his mid-fifties though he appears as a crusty old timer). If he doesn’t quite carry it off as the dynamic railroad man in D&RG all is forgiven for his perfectly splendid hat, a black slouch worn at a rakish angle and one of the Great Hats of Westerns.
.
.
Should have worn his hat in the publicity still
.
We have Dean Jagger, authoritative and competent as D&RG boss General Palmer, and J Carrol Naish (79 Westerns 1931 – 1970, time and again an Indian chief) as the ramrod Harkness.
.
.
J Carrol Naish
.
The great Paul Fix does an amusing comic relief part as the engineer, flirting with an equally good Zasu Pitts, the eternal eccentric spinster.
.
.
Comic relief
.
.
Only Kasey Rogers (as Laura Elliott) is not very good as the love interest, Linda. She comes across as plain unsympathetic but it was probably the writing, not her fault. However, she does have a really groovy typewriter. I love period gadgets in Westerns.
One disappointment is that the AT&SF in historical fact recruited some Dodge City toughs, including Doc Holliday and led by Bat Masterson, to fight for their side but these make no appearance in the movie. Lost opportunity, really.
There’s some good stirring music by Paul Sawtell.And the barman quells a saloon fight with a derringer. he seems to think it’s a scatter gun.
Looking back on it now, Denver and Rio Grande is, I suppose, really only a minor Western of the time but for me it will always be one of the great examples of the genre, a movie for which I have always had and still do have, the greatest affection. And you can love minor Westerns too, you know. It’s a must-see, e-pards.
.
10 Responses
You amaze me … you come up with films that I haven't even heard of! Now here is another I must seek out. Sounds like a corker. (And I love Zasu Pitts….)
A favorite from my distant youth. I watched it again last night. It's still brilliant.
Enjoy!
Jeff
Hi,
I was wondering if you know what brand of guitar Paul Fix was holding during the Tarot reading scene with Zasu Pitts?
I'very always been interested in the musical instruments that are used in movies for their period correct props.
Older movies seem to be much more accurate in this department.
Thanks for your time.
Afraid I can't help you there.
Maybe a reader can.
Jeff
Watched this on your recommendation. It was colorful and fast paced but O’Brien was completely miscast, the female lead strident and the dialogue was bad.
Though if I had seen it for the first time at 8 instead of 68 I might have different feelings.
Love your blog. Invaluable.
Vive la différence, Russell! And thank you for the kind words about JAW.
We can agree on the female lead. And you didn’t mention the rather obvious soundstage scenes scattered among the ones shot on location.
The late Mr. Arnold also had reservations about O’Brien; he did not, however, use his favorite dismissal (“not a proper Westerner”) of those not matching his preferred tall, lanky, laconic cowboy… probably because he enjoyed the picture so much. I appreciate O’Brien’s turn as a hard-charging hero but I am a fan of his work generally.
Like Jeff, I find this one to be popcorn-gobbling fun.
There is a gripping story about the making of this film in the last chapter of Diana Serra Cary’s The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History (Houghton Mifflin & Co, Boston, 1973)
I have GOT to order this ! ! ! I’m getting Peckinpah’s “Junior Bonner” (1971, next up in our ongoing adventures with ONE OF THE GREAT DIRECTORS) with my next Amazon order. I’ll see if I can include “Denver and Rio Grande” (1952).
Debby’ s comment is just the latest reason to order “Denver and Rio Grande,” the latest in a long line of reasons….
It’s Bud’s Popcorn Movie Bonus (from the Favorite Westerns post exactly a year ago, late August/early September). Bud’s endorsement by itself is a good reason.
Jeff loves it.
Sterling Hayden and Edmond O’Brien are in it.
And the love interest is played by a woman named Laura? (Or at least that’s her stage name?) I’ve dated two women named Laura. It’s a great name.
DUDE, I have got to order “Denver and Rio Grande” ! ! !
Edmond O’Brien was both a character actor and a – occasional and often unconventional – lead, very versatile having played all the genres (comedy, war, sci-fi, musical, political thriller, peplum, noir – mostly – and probably where he is at his best, as the hard-boiled guy, hero, cop or villain.)
Nowadays, he is not very much celebrated, maybe because he was ahead of his time disappearing into his roles, because of his unremarkable look, robust but with his chubby face and a smile, radiant or ferocious as appropriate.
Or because of his huge theater experience – he had been a member of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater- ?
His sad end (see below) did not help either.
In westerns, as underlined by Jeff, his best roles are probably when hidden behind a beard (Liberty Valance, The Wild Bunch) but he was usually much better than just OK in several others.
In his Warpath text Jeff says:
“Unfortunately, though, O’Brien couldn’t really cut it as the romantic hero. TheVariety review rather ungenerously, if perspicaciously, said that “O’Brien is good here but should watch waistline and jowls.” He does rather bulge out of his John Wayne shirt.”
But it does not prevent Jeff from liking the film.
Of The Big Land, Jeff says: “The best actor in the cast is O’Brien. He plays an alcoholic ex-architect and ex-railroad man, Joe Jagger” and “Some of all this comes perilously close to the cheesy. Generally, though, it just gets away with it, thanks largely to O’Brien”.
In préambule of Silver City, we can read:
“O’Brien (1915 – 85) was slightly stocky and not perhaps the first name that pops into your mind when thinking of Western actors, though he would be superb later in his career as older men, in the likes of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Rio Conchos and, especially, The Wild Bunch. He only made nine Western features in all, doing very well in other genres, such as crime/noir, and he would win an Oscar for his part in The Barefoot Contessa in 1955 [He got a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his despicable Oscar Muldoon in The Barefoot Contessa, one of the best Joseph Mankiewicz masterpieces in 1954.] but these first oaters, with Holt, were pretty good, and the producer greatly appreciated O’Brien’s huge professionalism. The actor always knew his lines, was never late, had a clear idea of what to do, was athletic – doing many of his own stunts – and he also had ‘it’. In 1949 the Young Women’s League of America, a national charitable organization of spinsters, voted that O’Brien had more “male magnetism” than any other man in America today. “All women adore ruggedness,” said league president Shirley Connolly. “Edmund [sic] O’Brien’s magnetic appearance and personality most fully stir women’s imaginative impulses. We’re all agreed that he has more male magnetism than any of the 60,000,000 men in the United States today.” Who knew?”
Jeff has written on all O’Brien westerns but Cow Country (not even mentioned in his Lesley Selander article. Its cast only would have deserved it (Helen Westcott, Robert Lowery, Barton MacLane, Peggie Castle, Robert Barrat, James Millican, Robert Wilke, Chuck Roberson…)
Enjoy !
1951 Warpath
1951 Silver City
1951 The Redhead and the Cowboy
1952 Denver & Rio Grande
1953 Cow Country
1957 The Big land
1962 The Man who shot Liberty Valance
1964 Rio Conchos
1969 The Wild Bunch
1970 The Intruders (TV)
To conclure (sadly)
Found in Travalanche Web site December 2018
The Vanishing Edmond O’Brien
“Two things have happened recently to thrust Edmond O’Brien (1915-1985) to the front of our consciousness. First, he is referred to frequently in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Di Caprio’s character repeatedly mentions how “Eddie” O’Brien had advised him to purchase, rather than rent, a home in Hollywood. And secondly, he has a role in Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind, just released a few months ago.
…
Alzheimer’s disease entirely ravaged his personality by the end of the decade. His last years were spent in a sanitarium. He reportedly had suffered memory problems as early as the 1950s, although whether those were due to early onset Alzheimer’s symptoms or rumored alcohol abuse is anybody’s guess. It is interesting if sad to look at some of his last roles, as crazy old eccentrics, in this light. O’Brien specialized in such parts for decades — but at this stage, how much of it was acting? Was it compensating? And where does acting stop, and compensating begin?
Bud, I’m glad you included your Popcorn Movie Bonus in your Favorite Westerns List (August/September 2024). Whatever movie you love, you should ABSOLUTELY tell us about. I give “Denver and Rio Grande” (1952) 5 stars ! ! !
Jeff is right when he says, “You can love minor Westerns too, you know.”
“Denver and Rio Grande” is not profound like John Huston’s film noir par excellence “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950, my #7 movie ever, any genre)–I’m thinking of Sterling Hayden, who stars in both, and NEVER FAILS to deliver–but “Denver and Rio Grande” makes up for it with a delightful fun factor.
Great cinematography by Ray Rennahan–I hadn’t heard of him before Jeff talked about him–and while Sterling Hayden stands out, I think all the performances are good. It’s my first time seeing Edmond O’Brien in a lead role, and I think Laura Elliott is fine as Linda. I sympathize with her very much.
The payoff is SUPERB ! ! ! ! Quite explosive (pun intended).
Sterling Hayden sure has knack for playing characters with endings YOU WON’T FORGET ! ! ! ! His ending as Dixon Handley in “The Asphalt Jungle” is PHENOMENAL, STUNNING–but MAN, I’m not going to forget his ending as McCabe in “Denver and Rio Grande” ! ! ! !
Not familiar with Byron Haskins, but he’s directed a winner.
Please hear Bud out, and heed Jeff’s recommendation: If you love Westerns, then “Denver and Rio Grande” is a must-see.