Review: Night Passage


Former railroad worker turned crummy accordion-player Jimmy Stewart is brought back into the fold by boss Jay C. Flippen to secretly ride as a passenger on a train with the train payroll on him, as a gang headed by unhinged Whitey Harbin (Dan Duryea) has been robbing trains left, right, and centre. Audie Murphy is Stewart’s wayward brother, AKA the Utica Kid, who is a part of Duryea’s gang, and who was a big part of the reason for Stewart getting fired in the first place. Young Brandon de Wilde is the kid who hero-worships Utica, but doesn’t want to take part in the robbery. Robert J. Wilke and Jack Elam are Duryea’s cohorts, pretty Dianne Foster is Murphy’s main squeeze.



Not-bad, but uneven 1957 B-western from James Neilson (a B-grader whose directorial debut this was) never really takes off because the overly-talky chief villain (an unbelievably whiny Duryea, in an uncharacteristic bad performance) seems such a feeble threat, whilst his far more menacing henchmen (chiefly the always welcome Elam and a supremely scary-looking Wilke, two of the best western henchmen in the biz) are on the reserves bench for most of it.



Still, Jimmy’s good, though should never have been encouraged to play accordion or sing in a movie. Ever. Especially when his accordion playing gets dubbed anyway!. Audie Murphy isn’t bad, and it’s always nice to see the underappreciated Foster and Flippen. The show is stolen by an amusing cameo by Olive Golden (wife of Harry Carey Sr., mother of Harry Carey Jr.) as plain-looking, tough-talkin’ Miss Vittles. Scripted by Borden Chase (“The Far Country”, “Winchester ‘73”), from a Norman A. Fox (“Tall Man Riding”) story, this isn’t a top-shelf Jimmy Stewart western, but it’s OK.



Rating: C+

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