Saga of the McLaine Brothers, who followed different trails, lived by different laws, but wanted the same woman!
Not an Anthony Mann / Jimmy Stewart western. Has a different emotional tone, much lighter. (Again, the comedy Irish characters, who worst of all start out the story.)
As with other westerns of the period, we get an insight into a part of the history of the West, which is a nice bonus. This time the context is the expansion of the railroad across the USA.
The best thing about the film is the chance to see Stewart play his accordion and sing, which I assume is authentic, at least the singing is. (I read later on Wikipedia or somewhere that the studio later over-dubbed Stewart's playing with that of a professional accordion player: for shame!)
The plot is a strange half and half affair, with the two supporting stars not appearing till the second half. Audie Murphy has a lot of screen presence, though I'm not sure he has enough of a dark side for his role as the 'evil' brother, apart from dressing all in black.
Duryea's performance is very disappointing after his excellent crazy villain in Winchester 73, as good as Richard Widmark's psychotic killer in Kiss of Death ten years earlier (1947). All he does in Night Passage is shout, as if playing a character who is hard of hearing.
- Rating: Matinee
- When seen: 21 Jan 2011
- Where seen: Home, on iPad
- More information: IMDB | RottenTomatoes | Wikipedia
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Amendments: Added writer tags: "Borden Chase, Norman A. Fox"; actor tags: "Dan Duryea, Dianne Foster, Elaine Stewart, Brandon De Wilde, Robert J. Wilke, Jack Elam". Removed link to Wikipedia-sourced image. Added ranking image.
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