Western Union

Fritz Lang directed three Westerns, all stylish mediations on frontier mythography. Western Union (1941) is chock full of cliches, yet proves highly entertaining. A good cast and effective make this familiar story sing.

Outlaw Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) rescues wounded Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger) while fleeing a posse. Later, Shaw finds that Creighton is an engineer with Western Union, contriving to build a transcontinental telegraph line. Creighton enlists Shaw, along with Eastern-educated Richard Blake (Robert Young) and sister Sue (Virginia Gilmore) to oversee its construction. But Shaw encounters Jack Slade (Barton MacLaine), his old partner-in-crime, now a Confederate spy stirring up trouble with Sioux Indians. Shaw grows torn between loyalty to Slade and his desire to go straight.

Western Union plays heavily on familiar archetypes. Robert Carson's script (based on a Zane Grey novel) blatantly borrows from John Ford's The Iron Horse (1925) and Cecil B. DeMille's Union Pacific (1939), replacing the railroad with telegraph. Films like this take Manifest Destiny and its technological innovations for granted; Creighton's building a newer, better America that can communicate coast-to-coast. There are shootouts, double-crosses, hostile Indians, love triangles and silly sidekicks (most egregiously Slim Summerville's cook). Westerns don't get more old-fashioned than this.


The situations resemble a cheap penny dreadful, but Lang's direction makes Western Union work. For a start, it's beautifully shot: Lang and photographers Edward Cronjager and Allen M. Davey use Technicolor to full advantage. The opening with Vance scattering a buffalo herd makes a breathtaking sequence. Throughout, Lang invests Utah's Zion National Park with the gravitas that John Ford granted Monument Valley, or Budd Boetticher Lone Pine. The desert landscapes are ravishing, and even the backlot sets have glorious vibrancy. 

Lang specializes, too, in rougher set pieces than your standard shoot-'em-up. At one point, Vance unbinds his hands by burning his wrists over a fire! That's before Slade's gang torches a Western Union camp in an impressive set pieces. The show culminates in a violent shootout, with Vance blasting Slade through a barbershop window. Western Union stages its familiar redemption arc with panache.

Randolph Scott's still in the second banana stage of his career, billed under Robert Young. But Scott's undeniably the star, his wary charm and conflicted character overwhelming Young's goofy protagonist. Dean Jagger is well-cast as the upright Creighton. Virginia Gillmore makes her love interest appealingly strong-willed; Barton MacLaine is a slimy villain. John Carradine, Chill Wills, Russell Hicks and Slim Summerville inhabit supporting roles.

Western Union makes such compelling viewing that we don't begrudge its cliches. There's enough colorful characters, gorgeous scenery and exciting action to satisfy Western fans.