ma-cortes A spectacular and mighty adventure during the Civil War when America's destiny rode in the saddle bags of adventurers and hard-working laborers installing the poles and cable . The ¨Western Union¨ feats were similarly developed to ¨Pony Express¨ that was a mail service delivering messages , newspapers , mail , and small packages from St. Joseph , Missouri , across the Great Plains , over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento , California , by horseback , and hardy riders , using a series of relay stations and it reduced the time for messages . It became from April 3 , 1860, to October 1861 , the West's most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and being vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the United States . Later on , ¨Pony Express¨ was replaced by the telegraph , and ¨Western Union¨ quickly became romanticized and became part of the lore of the American West . ¨Pony Express¨ , stagecoach and freight company ¨Wells Fargo¨ provided secure US mail service until the construction of telegraph lines proceeded by ¨Western Union¨. It was seen as evidence of rugged American individualism of the Frontier times . This movie concerns Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) gives up outlawing , he meets Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) who leads the construction of the Western Union to unite East with West ; the latter hires Vance and a tenderfoot Eastern surveyor as well as engineer from Harvard , Richard Blake (Robert Young) . Both of whom become romantically involved with the Edward's sister (Viginia Gilmore) . Meanwhile , some outlaws (Barton MacLane) attempting to prevent the company connecting the line and robbing the Western Union cattle masked of Indians Ogalaya .This traditional Western of the founding of telegraph routes westward contains thrills , rousing action , frontier adventure , shootouts , Indian attacks and exuberant outdoors . This vintage epic Western turns out to be a throughly entertaining picture that will appeal to Western fans . Big budget Western by Darryl F Zanuck's 20th Century Fox , and even studio publicity noted that Fox contract star Henry Fonda -though uncredited- had served as technical adviser on the film, due to his experience as a young man working as a lineman . Dealing with the political machinations and fights that accompanied the construction of the glamorous ¨Western Union¨ route from Omaha , Nebraska , to Salt Lake City , Utah , in which brave riders battling hostile Indians , cutthroats attempting on robbing , firing , astute bandits and many other things . Screenwriter Robert Carson utilized the title , but not the screenplay , of a Zane Grey novel . The main protagonists result to known players , such as Randolph Scott as a Western reformed outlaw , Robert Young as an obstinate surveyor and Dean Jagger as manager . Support cast is frankly magnificent , such as : John Carradine , Chill Wills , Barton MacLane , Slim Summerville , Charles Middleton and the ordinary Indians : Chief John Big Tree , Chief Thundercloud , Iron Eyes Cody , Jay Silverheels . The film displays a brilliant cinematography by expert cameraman Edward Cronjager in rich Technicolor . In addition , thrilling and evocative musical score by David Buttolph . The motion picture produced by Harry Joe Brown and Darryl F Zanuck was compellingly directed by Fritz Lang and with great enthusiasm . This was Lang's second Western , following his favorite ¨The return of Frank James¨ . The German Fritz showed himself a master of the most American of genres , yet made only one more Western : ¨Rancho Notorious¨. As Lang directed masterfully all kind of genres as Noir cinema as ¨Big heat¨ , ¨Scarlet Street¨ and ¨Beyond a reasonable doubt¨ , Epic as ¨Nibelungs¨, suspense as ¨Secret beyond the door¨ , ¨Clash by night¨ and Lang's trilogy about Nazi time as ¨Cloak and dagger¨, ¨Man hunt¨ and ¨Hangmen also die¨, and of course , Sci-Fi with the classic ¨Metropolis¨. Rating Western Union : Better than average . Well worth watching .

Gunn This is a sort of hidden gem. It has little to no promotion, no fanfare, no classic status, and it deserves all of the above! One of the great directors of cinema, Fritz Lang, has created a real gem in this excellent western. A fine cast led by Randolph Scott (in probably one of his greatest performances), the always sturdy Dean Jagger, Robert Young as a surprisingly accomplished dude plus many veteran character actors: Chill Wills, Slim Summerville, John Carradine, Barton MacLane and others in an exciting Zane Grey story of the laying of the Western Union cable across country. It has tense drama, sprinklings of humor and great effects. It's reminiscent of DeMille in ways and yet Fritz Lang leaves his own stamp on it. At very least this is a damned good western!

Gloede_The_Saint Fair to say I didn't like it much as some other people. It was just too common. This was all things you have seen before and not done too well either. It's the classic nice guys walk around jolly and laugh at a lot with some silly humor thrown in here and there and a bit of shooting and of course the obligatory ending you knew from the start.Very poor and stagy acting. Rather common for a lot of 30's and 40's films but still. The plot jumps all around and there's next to no build up. Something is thrown out, then it's resolved or forgotten. Also all these characters have been in so many films before and after that it's rather sad.It had a few good scenes though, love the magic wire scene with the Indians. Some of the "oh so cute, lol" scenes are enjoyable of course and of course Lang isn't a bad director so he did manage to pull it together, BUT this is by far his worst film IMO. from me.

elskootero Here's another of the 1940's westerns that I watch whenever it comes on TCM or FMC, because although it may be flawed historically, it is extremely entertaining and well acted, plus it's got Randolph Scott, my favorite actor second only to Gary Cooper-Well, OK, fourth behind COOP, Charlton Heston, and Gregory Peck. But the film itself, to me anyway, is reasonably historically accurate and as I said before, well acted and "flows" very well-I bet I've seen it 50 or 60 times, and enjoy each viewing more than the one before. I have it on tape from TCM but would buy it in a minute if it ever came out on DVD. See it if you haven't- I guarantee you'll like it!