BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

LeonLouisRicci This one is Sure to Disappoint Everyone, except maybe those that will give it a Pass because of the Wide-Wide-Screen, Technicolor, and Accordion Music Lovers.Because there's Nothing Here to Please James Stewart, Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea, or Western Movie Fans in General. It is Overall an Embarrassment.James Stewart seems Determined to make it work and Displays some of the Worst Overacting of His Career. Audie Murphy is Miscast and is Filmed in all the Wrong Ways and Looks like a Baby, and also gives one of His Worst Appearances in a Long Career. Dan Duryea Shouts and Screams Every Line and it is just Cringe Inducing. Jack Elam and the rest of the Cast are Wasted in Throwaway Roles. The Dialog has No Edge and the Action is Dull. This could possibly be the Worst Western with the Most to Work With ever. A Definitive Missed Opportunity and Waste of Talent.It's one to Avoid, for Everyone On Screen has done much Better and this is Perhaps the Worst Movie for all involved, or at least the Worst with the most Potential, and should be Ignored and Forgotten if You have any Regard for the Actors or Westerns.

FilmFlaneur Apparently no less a director than Anthony Mann left this project after the star, James Stewart, insisted on including accordion playing as part of his main character or perhaps of views he held about the script. The helm was instead taken eventually by James Neilson, most of whose career was spent in television. The film itself, together perhaps with Two Rode Together (1961), is seen as something of disappointment when seen alongside other great Stewart westerns of the 50's.Stewart plays a disgraced railroad man, reduced to playing music for nickels and dimes to help ends meet, until he is called back into action by his old boss to help solve some robberies. Chief among the suspects are his younger brother, The Utica Kid (Audie Murphy) now embroiled with an outlaw gang led by the unbalanced Whitey (Dan Duryea). Despite the variable reputation of this film I thoroughly enjoyed it, not least because of the plotting by Borden Chase and the excellent and large supporting case which also included Jack Elam, Paul Fix, Dianne Foster and Jay C Flippen. There's a part too for a now slightly older Brandon de Wilde, most famous for his role as the hero-worshiping youngster in Shane. After watching Audie Murphy just previously in the disappointing, much lower budgeted late vehicle Apache Rifles (1964), suddenly with this film the range seemed aright again. Murphy does an excellent turn as the conflicted younger brother, holding his screen presence well against the as always excellent Stewart, who, by this time, works his central role effortlessly. In fact Murphy's characteristic, taciturn, screen persona actually does the other main co-star Duryea a disservice, by emphasising some scenery-chewing elsewhere by the actor no doubt intent on showing Whitey's instability.Stewart gets to play his beloved accordion three or four times - although it must be admitted that, by the time it gets burnt in the climactic confrontation, one grows little tired of hearing his repertoire of, mostly, 'You Won't Get Far Without the Railroad'. Most obviously, the longish opening Mclintock-esque scene, one suspects, was inserted principally to showcase Stewart's playing, although his charm always carries such musical longeurs along. Away from the star's turn, the otherwise excellent composer Dimitri Tiomkin is hard put to incorporate the music meaningfully into the rest of the score. With the cheerful and interruptive accordion one looks in vain too for the wheezing ominousness which marks out, say, Harmonica's instrumental playing in Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Stewart's accordion does, however, play a final a part later in filling out an element of Murphy's moral character in what, one must admit, is a very effective, subtle scene. But overall it's a minor, idiosyncratic, element in a film which is still excellent viewing, a production taking full advantage of a big budget and good sized cast, and one thoroughly recommended. An obvious question remains: why is it called 'Night Passage' when there is hardly any day-for-night work, and no significant travel made in the dark?

SnoopyStyle Grant McLaine (James Stewart) is a fired railroad worker who is playing the accordion for scraps. Recent train robberies by Whitey Harbin and his men force the boss to rehire him to carry the payroll cash to the workers. When his train is held up, he hides the money in a boy's shoebox. The boy turns out to be The Utica Kid (Audie Murphy).The start is very slow. We don't get to the train for awhile. This part of the story definitely needs more tension. Once the train robbery happens, a more proper amount of pace is injected into the movie. But even here, the dialog is hokey and the movie is every bit a run of the mill western. This is definitely missing a more adventurous style. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this for more than a James Stewart fan or a Sunday afternoon filler.

James Hitchcock Night Passage should have been the sixth Western collaboration between James Stewart and director Anthony Mann. Mann, however, withdrew from the project because he found the script weak and because he disagreed with the casting of Audie Murphy as Stewart's co-star.Stewart plays Grant McLaine, a former troubleshooter for railroad company. Grant lost his job when he was suspected of dishonest collusion with a bandit known as the Utica Kid, and, unable to find alternative employment, has earned a living playing the accordion. (Stewart himself was a talented performer on this instrument). Grant's former boss, Ben Kimball, however, is in trouble. His payroll has been robbed several times by the Utica Kid and his gang, and his workers are threatening to leave the job if they don't get paid soon. Grant therefore accepts the job of taking $10,000 to them by train.I think that Mann's reservations about this film were justified, even though it led to the rupture of his relationship with Stewart. Following their disagreement they never worked together again (and according to some versions of the story never spoke to one another again). There was certainly a suspicion in some quarters that Audie Murphy's career as a film star owed more to his distinguished war record than it did to any acting talent. This viewpoint was not always to be proved correct; Murphy was, for example, excellent in "The Red Badge of Courage", a film in which he was able to draw upon his own wartime experiences. "Night Passage", however, is not one of his better performances.As regards the script, Mann was quite correct to describe it as weak. The earlier Stewart-Mann Westerns ("The Naked Spur" is a good example) were noted for their dark tone, similar to the pessimistic, cynical tone of contemporary film noir, with Stewart normally playing a flawed, ambiguous character rather than the sort of clean-cut heroes he had played in his earlier career. They can, in fact, be seen as prefiguring the "revisionist" Westerns of the sixties and early seventies. "Night Passage" lacks the depth and sense of moral ambiguity which characterised Mann's Westerns. Like Howard Kemp, Stewart's character in "The Naked Spur", Grant McLaine is hiding a secret, namely that the Utica Kid is really his younger brother Lee, which is why he allowed the Kid to escape on a previous occasion. (Presumably the family couldn't decide which side they were on during the Civil War, so named one son after a Northern general and the other after a Confederate one). The film does not, however, make the most of the dramatic possibilities of this plot line, and there is little ambiguity about Grant, essentially a misunderstood clean-cut hero who hopes to redeem his brother by turning him away from a life of crime.After Mann left the production, the film was directed by James Neilson. Although Neilson was to direct a few more films in the sixties, such as "The Moon-Spinners", he worked mainly in television, and "Night Passage" was in fact his first feature film. The pacing of the film is often slack and the storyline can be confusing; it struck me that it might well have been improved with a more experienced cinema director such as Mann at the helm. Like "The Naked Spur" it was filmed against some striking Colorado landscapes, but the photography never seems as effective as it did in the earlier film.There are some better things about the film; James Stewart's own performance is perfectly adequate, and he receives good support from some of the other actors, such as Dan Duryea as the Kid's fellow-gangster Whitey. "Night Passage" must, however, rank as one of the less memorable of Stewart's Westerns, not in the same class as his best work with Mann or some of his later films in the genre such as "Cheyenne Autumn" or "Firecreek". 5/10