Overland Pacific

Last updated

Overland Pacific
Overland Pacific.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Fred F. Sears
Screenplay by J. Robert Bren
Gladys Atwater
Martin Goldsmith
Story byFrederick Louis Fox
Starring Jock Mahoney
Peggie Castle
Adele Jergens
Cinematography Lester White
Edited byBuddy Small
Music by Irving Gertz
Production
companies
Superior Pictures Inc.
World Films, Inc.
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • February 27, 1954 (1954-02-27)
Running time
73 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Overland Pacific is a 1954 American color Western film directed by Fred F. Sears and starring Jock Mahoney, Peggie Castle and Adele Jergens. [1]

Contents

Plot

Ross Granger practices sending telegraphs noisily while sharing a stagecoach with an uninterested man and an irate woman. The coach halts at a telegraph pole adorned with a worker who has an arrow in his back. They place the worker's body on top of the coach, but it falls off before they reach Oaktown. Granger has a fistfight with the driver over the loss and sends him back to retrieve the body.

At the Silver Dollar Saloon he meets his old friend from the Civil War: Del Stewart. Del invites him to dinner with him and his girlfriend Ann and they reminisce.

Outside town men are laying a new railroad track for Overland Pacific when they are attacked by Comanche Indians armed with bow and arrows and rifles. There is also suspicion of sabotage.

Del is engaged to Ann Dennison, whose father runs the railroad. Del goes out to see the father who is surveying the land. Del tries to persuade the father to detour the railway to go through Oaktown, but he resists. Del's partner arrives and shoots the father dead. The killer and Del attend the funeral.

Granger starts work as a telegraph operator but it is thought he is an impostor. The sheriff goes out to warn Granger that trouble is brewing. The sheriff shows where the Comanche have rifles hidden. An ambush is waiting from Jason. Granger suspects this but is shot in the chest, but manages to kill Jason. The sheriff is revealed as being sided with the other side and draws his gun on Granger. Granger collapses before he is shot.

Granger revives in town. He knows now Jason killed Mr Dennison. Del is revealed as hiring the Comanche to attack the railroad workers.

A jealous Jessie Lorraine, his dance-hall girl, loves Del as well. Del and his cohorts are secretly selling repeater rifles to Chief Dark Thunder and the Comanche Indians, who do not want the railroad crossing their land. Del and rancher Broden want the Overland Pacific to re-route through Oaktown, where they own property.

A hired gun and corrupt sheriff both end up dead. Ann breaks off her engagement upon learning Del's scheme, pleasing Jessie until she discovers the true nature of Del, then is shot by him. It is left to Granger to win a shootout with Del, after which he and Ann commence a romance.

Cast

Production

Jock Mahoney signed a five-picture deal with Edward Small of which this was the first. It was originally known as Silver Dollar. [2] Although it is generally regarded as a low budget Western, it was actually one of the first films to use blood squibs to simulate someone being shot. This happens twice: at around the 25 minute mark when Jason (Chris Alcaide) shoots and kills Dennison (Walter Sande), then around the 35 minute mark when Jason shoots and wounds Granger (Jock Mahoney).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dalton Gang</span> Group of outlaws in the American Old West

The Dalton Gang was a group of outlaws in the American Old West during 1890–1892. It was also known as The Dalton Brothers because four of its members were brothers. The gang specialized in bank and train robberies. During an attempted double bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892, two of the brothers and two other gang members were killed; Emmett Dalton survived, was captured, and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, although he later asserted that he never fired a shot during the robbery. He was paroled after serving 14 years in prison.

Gunfighters, also called gunslingers, or in the late 19th and early 20th century, gunmen were individuals in the American Old West who gained a reputation of being dangerous with a gun and participated in gunfights and shootouts. Today, the term "gunslinger" is more or less used to denote someone who is quick on the draw with a handgun, but this can also refer to those armed with rifles and shotguns. The gunfighter is also one of the most popular characters in the Western genre and has appeared in associated films, television shows, video games, and literature.

<i>Warlock</i> (1959 film) 1959 film directed by Edward Dmytryk

Warlock is a 1959 American Western film produced and directed by Edward Dmytryk starring Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone. The picture is an adaptation of the novel Warlock by American author Oakley Hall. The film is both set and filmed in Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Starrett</span> American actor (1903–1986)

Charles Robert Starrett was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the Durango Kid westerns. Starrett still holds the record for starring in the longest series of theatrical features: 131 westerns, all produced by Columbia Pictures.

The Tally Man is the name of two fictional supervillains in the DC Universe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colton Crossing</span> Railway crossing in Colton, California

Colton Crossing is a railway crossing situated in Colton, California, directly south of Interstate 10. First built in 1883, it was the site of one of the most intense frog wars in railroad construction history, leading to a personal confrontation between famed lawman Virgil Earp and California Governor Robert Waterman. The crossing was the intersection of the tracks for the Sante Fe (ATSF) and Southern Pacific (SP) railroads. The tracks are now owned by the SP's and the ATSF's successors, the Union Pacific (UP) and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroads respectively. The UP tracks run east–west at the crossing while the BNSF tracks run north–south. Metrolink trains and Amtrak's Southwest Chief use the BNSF tracks through the crossing while Amtrak's Sunset Limited utilize the UP tracks. The UP tracks come from the east through the Coachella Valley and into the yard in West Colton. On the other hand, the BNSF tracks from the indirect west and direct south continue through the crossing and on to the yard in San Bernardino, which then head up north to Cajon Pass and eventually Barstow on the journey to Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chubby Johnson</span> American character actor and journalist

Charles Randolph "Chubby" Johnson was an American film and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm, country-accented voice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jock Mahoney</span> American actor

Jacques Joseph O'Mahoney, known professionally as Jock Mahoney, was an American actor and stuntman. He starred in two Action/Adventure television series, The Range Rider and Yancy Derringer. He played Tarzan in two feature films and was associated in various capacities with several other Tarzan productions. He was credited variously as Jacques O'Mahoney,Jock O'Mahoney, Jack Mahoney, and finally Jock Mahoney.

Dan Tucker, better known as "Dangerous Dan" Tucker,, is a little-known Canadian-American lawman and gunfighter of the Old West.

The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as a route alternative to the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails through central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay to run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah, via stagecoaches in the early 1860s. Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until 1869 when the completion of the First transcontinental railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Sande</span> American actor (1906–1971)

Walter Sande was an American character actor, known for numerous supporting film and television roles.

Fuzzy Settles Down is a 1944 American Western film directed by Sam Newfield.

<i>The Kangaroo Kid</i> (film) 1950 film by Lesley Selander

The Kangaroo Kid is a 1950 Australian-American Western film directed by Lesley Selander.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AR-15–style rifle</span> Class of semi-automatic rifles

An AR-15–style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on or similar to the Colt AR-15 design. The Colt model removed the selective fire feature of its predecessor, the original ArmaLite AR-15, itself a scaled-down derivative of the AR-10 design by Eugene Stoner.

<i>The Prince of Thieves</i> 1948 film by Howard Bretherton

The Prince of Thieves is a 1948 American adventure film nominally inspired by Alexandre Dumas' 1872 novel Le Prince des voleurs. Produced by Sam Katzman for Columbia Pictures and starring Jon Hall as Robin Hood with stuntwork by Jock Mahoney, the film was shot in the Cinecolor process that features an inability to reproduce the colour green. Sequences were shot reusing several of the sets of Columbia's The Bandit of Sherwood Forest and at Corriganville. Patricia Morison and Adele Jergens co-star.

<i>Outlaw Treasure</i> 1955 film

Outlaw Treasure is a 1955 American Western film directed by Oliver Drake and starring Johnny Carpenter, Adele Jergens, and Glenn Langan. It was one of the first movies released by American Releasing Corporation, which later became American International Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2017 Las Vegas shooting</span> Deadliest mass shooting in the US

On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parkland high school shooting</span> 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, US

On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Miami suburban town of Parkland, Florida, United States, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. Cruz, a former student at the school, fled the scene on foot by blending in with other students and was arrested without incident approximately one hour and twenty minutes later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Washington Initiative 1639</span>

Initiative 1639 was a Washington state ballot initiative concerning firearms regulation that was passed into law on November 6, 2018. The initiative altered the gun laws in Washington by defining the term "semiautomatic assault rifle" to include all semiautomatic rifles, raising the minimum age for purchasing semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21. It also imposes a 10-day waiting period before being allowed to claim a rifle from a firearms dealer, and expanded background checks to include medical records requiring a waiver of HIPAA rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. Butler Duncan</span> Scottish-American banker and railroad executive (1830–1912)

William Butler Duncan was a Scottish-American banker and railroad executive.

References

  1. Overland Pacific at the TCM Movie Database
  2. Hopper, Hedda (August 17, 1953). "Looking at Hollywood: David Niven to Make a Picture in London". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. b6.