Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

funkyfry Kansas Pacific isn't a particularly great film, but it's far from the bottom of the barrel if you ask me. The main thing it's got going for it is obvious – leading man Sterling Hayden, slumming it at Allied Artists but putting his best effort into a pretty standard character. And although the film's plot twists will be easily seen a mile away, the script manages to make the scenario come alive with some crisp dialogue and assorted moments of insight.Hayden plays John Nelson, a U.S. Army Captain who is sent to Kansas as an undercover agent, posing as an engineer with the railroad company on the project to build a railroad connecting Kansas to the West Coast. As the prologue explains, the completion of the railroad is crucial to the North's hopes in the impending Civil War (the film is set in 1860, just before the outbreak of hostilities). The South, realizing this, sends an intelligent and cultured leader, Bill Quantrill (Reed Hadley) to co-ordinate attacks with an eye to delaying the railroad's completion. At first the railroad man on the job, Cal Bruce (Barton MacLane) and his lovely daughter Barbara (Eve Miller) resist his charms and his efforts, but they soon learn of his patriotic mission and embrace the cause.This is an extremely low budget film – so cheap that you can easily spot anachronisms like tire tread on the roads. In the scene where Captain Nelson chases the two men into the bar, he tries to tie his horse onto the post but the rope slips off and he just walks away. I guess they figured audiences wouldn't notice this stuff, or it was too late to fix. Anyway, the cheap sets do give the film a somewhat unpleasant look with the interior scenes – I recognized the Washington DC set as the same one used in some of Roger Corman's films from later in the 50s, and possibly in some of the Schneer/Harryhausen productions – but this is more than made up for by some lovely exterior photography of the Western setting.As said above the plot is somewhat standard as is the approach to the romance between the Captain and the daughter, but everything is done just well enough so that Western fans won't mind. The film gives us a somewhat interesting look at the period just before the Civil War, where as the prologue reminds us there was massive bloodshed which was unjustified because there had been no formal declaration of war (does this imply that the declaration of war made mass bloodshed somehow just?). When Captain Nelson arrives in town almost the first thing he does is involve himself in a fight between strangers. It turns out that he had come to the rescue of his nemesis, Bill Quantrill, because the Southerner was being jumped by 3 men with Northern sympathies. This underlies the Captain's essential morality – he is supporting the North but he would not do anything dishonorable to further his cause. At this point before the War at least, it's still possible to place morality or justice above victory. Given the fact that Hadley's Quantrill is well-spoken and seems more reserved than his henchmen (one of whom is portrayed by Clayton Moore), this initial scene between the two men promises the possibility of two opposing but equally honorable opponents, but the film doesn't really follow this interesting course, instead eventually devolving into a fairly standard good guys/bad guys conflict.Still, for Western fans this one will be reasonably worthwhile for Hayden's stout performance and some decent action scenes – the attack on the train by cannons is particularly and surprisingly effective given how cheap the film is on the whole.

ptb-8 This very appealing and simple railroad western is a Monogram Picture made in color and labeled 'An Allied Artists Film" to up-size its image. Other comments on this site will tell you the story and the history of the time and setting; I shall stick to my reaction. Basically filmed on a short distance of track at the back of some western lot, AA have succeeded in creating a suspenseful B grade chase western that allows for some very well staged train stunts and explosive set pieces. With a excellent music score matching the rousing action and photographed superbly in Cinecolor (I did not know this 'cheap' process was so beautiful) all clearly adds to the welcome comic book look and feel of this handsome railroad drama. Other excellent train chase films include NORTHWEST FRONTIER (1959) and THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE (1956) and recently: TV movie Young Indiana Jones And The Phantom Train Of Doom which in itself is almost an elaborate remake of Kansas Pacific but set in WW1..... and If you love Republic action pix in glorious Trucolor like I do, then find a tape of TIMBERJACK (1954) which has a fantastic contraption style logging train in peril, more Sterling Hayden and even a few songs by Hoagy Carmichael and (gulp) Vera Ralston - with tambourine! The Americana of Kansas Pacific and Timberjack make a excellent western train double feature if you are keen for some track work and explosions in your own lounge room. Fun to watch with Nephews and pre-teens whilst babysitting....like I did. So easy to enjoy. Wait 'till you see the cannon battle with the carriages blasted off the tracks! Well done!

bkoganbing This is a curious unpretentious little western from the former Monogram Studios about the building of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. The action takes place before and during the Civil War with Sterling Hayden as the Army Captain sent west to supervise. He supersedes Barton MacLane who is the foreman and has some time to romance MacLane's daughter played by Eve Miller.Film has some nice action sequences, but the script has a lot of holes in it. Reed Hadley plays William Quantrill who's doing a lot ofsabotage and pretty successfully. Then for no real reason he stops and lets construction proceed. He says he's waiting for some artillery from the Confederate States of America. That's the only indication we get that the Civil War has officially begun. Then when the railroad is finished, Quantrill decides to use the artillery to attack moving trains. I suppose while he's waiting, Quantrill is out doing the stuff he's more infamous for.Quantrill is a stock villain in a whole lot of westerns, yet no one has ever done a reasonably accurate film with him in it. Reed Hadley, who had one of the best speaking voices in Hollywood, does his best with what he's given here. All you folks who watched Racket Squad back in the 50s remember Hadley narrating and portraying Captain Braddock. His voice is unmistakeable.Another unmistakeable voice belongs to Clayton Moore who has a bit part as one of Quantrill's henchman while on hiatus from The Long Ranger.Don't expect too much from this. DeMille did it better in Union Pacific, but he had a lot more resources to work with.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) In this well made western, the builders of the railroad have a problem: the civil war will start at any moment, and the sympathizers of the south will do everything they can to sabotage it. After many incidents they go to Washington to ask for the army to help them, but as the war had not started, they send only one man:Sterling Hayden, and he sure knows how to deal with it. Very entertaining, worth seeing for anybody who likes westerns