Denver and Rio Grande

• Directed by Byron Haskin
• May 16, 1952

The charting of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1870.

It is amazing what you find at secondhand stores-like Denver and Rio Grande. It was unknown to me before, but I am always interested in an old Western film. Based on YouTube it was not very well known to others to begin with since even the trailer is not available and what little exists there are mostly bad clips.

This Western’s first sin is that it is one of those old movies that shoots outdoors and mixes that casually with footage from on a set. These were not establishing shots to say to the audience where they were, but a character would be filmed outside with the acting moving to a TV quality set. Sometimes they might even cut through a set only to be out in the real world again. Why?

In the story are a trio of men who are going to get a locomotive line through come hell or highwater and a woman named Linda Nelson (Kasey Rogers) with hidden motives that works for the line owner Gen. William J. Palmer (Dean Jagger) and is undermining things. As part of the problem she seems about as evil as Strawberry Shortcake, but it is what it is.

The story centers on railroad man Jim Vesser (Edmond O’Brien) who may have accidentally killed a railroad worker during a confrontation. There’s about five minutes where he’s given up on not only pushing the railroad through but on everything in life while wallowing in drink. That is until his pal Gil Harkness (J. Carrol Naish) gets him to come back with a shallow bro pep talk.

Denver and Rio Grande has a running comedic plot that really doesn’t do much for the main plot. It involves Engineer Moynihan (Paul Fix) and Jane Dwyer (Zasu Pitts). It is padding and nothing else to stretch the movie out with their story feeling unknown to every other character. Was this written by a 50s TV comedy writer.

The big revelation is that Vesser’s accidental kill was the brother of Linda. Revelations like that which connect to significant character motivations need to be hinted at if not outright dropped on the audience before they are dropped to the main characters. She helps the villain but you are not really clued in on why.

The acting is kind of bland. The villains who are trying to undermine the railroad and kill people just come off as jerky and not murderous. The good guys are more irritated with the woman when they find out she’s been the one leaking information. Linda never seems really bothered by anybody. There is the tepid romance between the slightly pudgy hero Vesser and the discount lead female Linda. Despite her betrayals and all by the end you know they are an item and go off into the sunset so to speak.

Everybody here does a serviceable job, but the hero isn’t manly enough to pull off the manly nature of his character. Dean Yeager is too fatherly to be a businessman with the villains being closer to harmless teen punks in a comedy than they are to murderous people. Maybe another pass on the script or maybe some better casting. There had to of been a better macho guy in Hollywood available than what they got.

Denver and Rio Grande by modern standards is very family friendly. It’s safe yet enjoyable. You won’t hate it. You may even view it again with enough time but it’s not something that’s going to rank in your top 10 Westerns.