Colorado Territory (1949) User Reviews (53)

Memorable Forties Western.

[jpdoherty · 6/10 · 23 November 2011]

Despite the misnomer of a title Warner Bros."Colorado Territory" remains a well liked and memorable forties western. Produced for Warners in 1949 by Anthony Villiers and tightly directed by Raoul Walsh this was the vintage director's reworking of his own classic 1941 Bogart gangster hit "High Sierra" as a western. The result turned out to be an exciting and top notch outdoor western adventure. However its somewhat hoary and clichéd title does tend to give the picture a cheap and dismissive B picture status which is totally unwarranted. They could just as easily have called it simply "Colorado" which not only would have been a title of greater dramatic impact but would also have made reference to the character in the story Calorado Carson as played by Virginia Mayo. Written for the screen by John Twist it was based on W.R. Burnett's novel "High Sierra" and crisply photographed in glorious Black & White by the great Sid Hickok.

Outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) is broken out of prison by an old accomplice and mentor (Basil Ruysdael) to plan and execute one last job - the robbery of $100,000 from the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train. But Reno Blake and Duke Harris (John Archer/James Mitchel) the two others he has to work with are a couple of mistrustful and devious characters who resent McQueen arriving at the hideout and starting to give orders. Along with the two - for some female company - is an attractive half-breed dance hall girl Calorado Carson (Virginia Mayo) who immediately takes a fancy to McQueen because he treats her with some respect. Eventually thwarting a double cross by Reno and Duke during the actual robbery on the speeding train McQueen and Colorado escape with the money on horseback hotly pursued by the US Marshal (Morris Ankrum) and his posse. The picture ends tragically with a wounded McQueen being boldly defended by Colorado in a fierce gun battle as she tries in vain, with two six guns, to stop the advancing posse. Together, hand in hand, Wes and Colorado perish.

The acting is generally good from all concerned. In a rare instance of playing an outlaw McCrea gives his usual laconic and appealing performance. But better is Virginia Mayo who is very striking as the hard bitten half-breed who falls in love with the gentle fugitive. And not forgetting the powerful image she created for the blistering finale. Standing daringly and with trenchant resolve and determination she blasts away with two six guns in defense of her wounded man before being brought down in a hail of gunfire. It is a great cinematic moment!

Besides the marvellous monochrome cinematography of Sid Hickock, filmed in and around Gallup New Mexico, the picture is also buoyed by a terrific score by the ever underrated David Buttolph featuring a sweeping and arching main theme and some great action music especially for the train chase sequence.

A good western "Colorado Territory" was never available on DVD before but now thanks to the Warner Archives label it has just been released in a clean and sharp transfer.

Very entertaining '40's western from Raoul Walsh.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 8/10 · 29 September 2006]

Raoul Walsh was perhaps the most entertaining director of the '40's, with movies like "Objective, Burma!", "They Died with Their Boots On" and "Gentleman Jim" behind his name, plus he also made some good early westerns. Sounds like the perfect guy to direct a movie like this, especially since this movie is a western remake of his earlier directed movie classic "High Sierra", with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. This movie might not be as 'star-filled' as the original but it's just as entertaining, arousing and intriguing on its own.

Westerns from the '40's were much different from the later spaghetti-westerns everybody knows. The early westerns from the '40's and the decades before that are a bit forgotten movies, probably mainly because they differ so much from the later westerns from the '60's and '70's that everybody from that- and later generations, basically grew up with. Westerns from the '40's were much darker and possibly less formulaic. This movie is basically more 'film-noir' than real western. It has all the basic film-noir ingredients in it; Backstabbing characters, treacherous woman, a criminal plot and mysterious unpredictable characters. It makes this movie also real perfect to watch for persons who don't like spaghetti-westerns.

Leave it up to director Raoul Walsh to tell a story well and entertaining. The story of "Colorado Territory" really isn't the most spectacular story you could think of but the way it is told and brought to the screen all can be called spectacular. The movie is filled with some real good action sequences and spectacular looking stunts. But granted that the storytelling is not completely flawless. The movie is perhaps a bit too short and the love story of the movie also doesn't quite work out as good as it could had been. I don't know, for some reason it just doesn't feel right, or connects with the rest of the movie.

The storytelling also makes sure that the movie remains for most part unpredictable, which also helps to make the film-noir elements work out. "Colorado Territory" is a rare both unpredictable and entertaining movie.

The cast is solid. It isn't filled with the most known actors of its period. Perhaps Errol Flynn was expected to play a role in this, since he worked a lot with Raoul Walsh in the '40's but instead the main part is played by Joel McCrea, who was an expert at playing characters in westerns. He plays a good and convincing tough-guy who has a good heart. Perhaps a bit too much of a good heart to make the story entirely believable but that's just common and entirely fitting for '40's movie-making standards.

An interesting to watch- and spectacular entertaining noir-western, that just like its original version "High Sierra", deserves to be seen.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Harsher and more beautiful than I expected

[eebyo · 7/10 · 5 November 2005]

The commenters who called this "Western noir" are on the money. Just about everyone in this movie is a ratlike scheming double- or triple-crosser. Bad guys suffer fates not noticeably worse than the handful of schmo's who are honest (mostly in the relative, honor-among-thieves sense). It's all bleak for the ones who don't get out alive and also for the ones who do.

The one aspect of this movie that may have lost its punch for 21st century viewers is the script's banal dialogue for the two key women characters. Virginia Mayo in particular is better than her lines and her costume, which is fashioned entirely from clichés about wanton women who aren't 100 percent Anglo. But the story arc treats the women just differently enough from the "classic" Western that it held my interest.

The cast, top to bottom, is excellent. Joel McCrea does that thing he does so well *especially* well here. I'd like to see Peter Sarsgaard reprise a McCrea role some day, in either a Western or a Sturges classic.

One More Heist

[harry-76 · 4 October 2003]

Just one, before our aging outlaw's final retirement and start of a new life.

But there are complications--crafty colleagues, traitor accomplices and--women.

One woman turns out to be helpful, the other merely selfish. But that's just the start of our antihero's problems.

It's a Raoul Walsh film, and by golly, if any director knew how to make a movie move, it's Walsh. Made the same year as his classic, "White Heat," this western also ends with an "On Top o' the World" finale.

Joel McCrea is an intriguing actor. A sort of neutral entity that could be cast in any kind of role and come off looking and sounding natural and acceptable. No one ever especially went to see, nor stayed away from a picture because of him. He was just there, always doing a dependable job. And what an array of fine directors used him.

Likewise, Virginia Mayo is a solid pro, and this role allows her more opportunity than merely being decorative. Her character work is most convincing.

Taking what could have been a routine script, Walsh turns it into a picture that, once one starts watching, one cannot stop till the end. It moves, surprises and stimulates.

Some directors just have it, and Walsh is clearly strutting his stuff in "Colorado Territory."

If there is a train...there is a train robber.

[michaelRokeefe · 6/10 · 4 October 2003]

Not typical, but exceptional. Director Raoul Walsh presents all that you look for in a western. An outlaw(Joel McCrea)has two things on his mind after getting out of jail. One is another railroad heist and the second is romancing "bad" girl Virginia Mayo. Fast moving action with great images of Colorado Territory. Super supporting cast includes: Dorothy Malone, James Mitchell, Henry Hull and John Archer. One of the best of the genre.

classic western

[RanchoTuVu · 9/10 · 3 December 2009]

Outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) gets sprung from a Missouri jail on the day before he is to be transported to Leavenworth by his old gang who need him for a big train robbery somewhere out in the Colorado Territory. The characters couldn't be more different. McCrae plays the part of an outlaw struggling with his own moral scruples while his partners Duke (James Mitchell) and Reno (John Archer) compete to see who the meanest one is. The presence of Virginia Mayo in this group doesn't make a lot of sense, but her part increases as the film moves along. One of the film's best plot lines is the jealousy that comes to the surface of Reno's character as Mayo's Colorado Carson is clearly taken with the cool McQueen played by McCrae. On the other side of the law is a ruthless and relentless US Marshall played by Morris Ankrum who leads an impressively sized posse out to catch up with and either shoot or hang McQueen. The film zeroes in on treachery and deceit at every opportunity. Dorothy Malone's character is especially memorable.

A remake of a film that just didn't need remaking--but it's still worth a look

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 March 2008]

HIGH SIERRA was an exceptional Bogart film and it helped to make him a bonafied star. However, like Hollywood tended to do in the 30s and 40s, they remade this film less than a decade later! However, considering how good HIGH SIERRA was, Colorado TERRITORY can't help but come up a bit short even if it is still a good film.

Joel McCrea gets the unenviable task of repeating Bogie's role, though in this case the film is set in the Old West. The plot is basically the same and everyone associated with the film did a fine job--but I still am asking why bother remaking such a good film? It's worth seeing, but unless you are a huge Western or McCrea fan, it's skip-able.

By the way, in an unusual move, director Raoul Walsh was at the helm of the original AND this re-make.

Definitely Worth A Detour

[cstotlar-1 · 9/10 · 10 December 2013]

This is as superb western by a director who knows his stuff. Raoul Walsh hasn't received the credit he deserves and this film is all but forgotten. It doesn't have any big stars or overacting, agreed, and perhaps people are looking for Oscar material rather than a great film. It's their loss. The film covers much territory (no pun intended) but certainly not too much and the many surprises work quite well. The characters' motives unravel as the film progresses, the way they should work. There aren't any easy answers here and the clichés are nowhere to be found, unlike so many by-the-numbers westerns. This is an action film from the beginning and keeps things going until the very end. It should be much better known.

Curtis Stotlar

Fine Western Remake Of High Sierra

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 19 October 2021]

Raoul Walsh directed this 1949 western remake of his 1941 film "High Sierra" that had starred Humphry Bogart as criminal Roy Earle; here it is Wes McQueen as portrayed by Joel McCrea, who also gets out of prison, wanting to go straight, but must follow through on one last heist that will of course mean his doom. Virginia Mayo costars as his partner/love interest and matches well with Ida Lupino from the earlier film.

Exciting, intelligent film is a fine match with the original, though does make some narrative changes that work well, and both versions employ an intriguing use of a non-judgmental, semi-morally detached view of its characters.

Territorial Doom.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 11 July 2015]

Colorado Territory is directed by Raoul Walsh and adapted to screenplay by Edmund H. North and John Twist from the novel "High Sierra" written by W.R. Burnett. It stars Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone and Henry Hull. Music is by David Buttolph and cinematography by Sidney Hickox.

Raoul Walsh remakes his own High Sierra from 1941 but supplants it into a Western genre setting - with tremendous results.

McCrea plays outlaw Wes McQueen who springs from prison and vows to go straight, but with a price on his head he is coerced into one last railroad robbery. If he can escape the law then he can make a go of it as a new man, with a new name, and comforted by a new found love of a good woman, Colorado Carson (Mayo). Can he escape the law and those who would sell him out for money?

A remake of a classic film noir, Colorado Territory is itself classic film noir. Whilst not reaching the dizzying star heights of Bogart's 41 version, this is a film of great strengths. Thematically it's noir gold dust, the great Walsh not pandering to anyone and ensuring the dark edges of Burnett's novel play out on screen - including the shattering finale.

The photography is grade "A", both in chiaroscuro textures and sumptuous location framings. Cast can't be faulted either, McCrea a genuine horseman is firmly at home in a Western setting, Mayo and Malone positively light and sex up the screen, while classy performer Hull lends weighty support.

High end Western staples are adhered to, with robbery actions, fights, stunts, villainous betrayals and back stabbers, these marry up to the noirish cement of a man unable to escape his fate, his past weighing heavy on his shoulders, all ensuring there's constantly a doom laden feel permeating the story.

Rarely mentioned when talk turns to film noir Westerns, but it should be since it's one of the best. 9/10

One last job.

[brogmiller · 7/10 · 1 June 2022]

Eight years on and Raoul Walsh has returned to 'High Sierra' with a screenplay by John Twist and stark noirish cinematography by Sid Hickox that suits the Western milieu ideally. The bleak, craggy landscape is an active participant in the plot and the final shoot out is impressively staged.

Joel McCrae stars as an outlaw whilst Dorothy Malone is a milquetoast and Virginia Mayo is untamed. Miss Mayo really shines here and as always steps up a gear for this director. Underrated and understated McCrea is inspired casting as he would seem to be cast against type. One never catches him acting and many fine directors have made excellent use of what one critic described as his 'determined simplicity'.

Superb

[qedinternational-1 · 10/10 · 22 May 2006]

Walsh's reworking of his own High Sierra into western format works in every conceivable way. In the reweaving, he has created a western noir more lyrical and more resonant than his original gangster noir. The background is used magnificently, both in terms of the landscape and in terms of the native cultures. Morris Ankrum, best known as a judge in myriad Perry Mason episodes and a General in several science fiction cult classics, is a revelation as the Marshal hunting antihero McCrea down relentlessly. At first he seems easy to outwit, but turns out to be much more formidable. Henry Hull, Ian Wolfe, Jim Mitchell, John Archer, also give excellent supporting performances. But it is half-breed Virginia Mayo, tough as nails but as loyal a woman warrior as ever walked the Earth, who steals the film's acting honor's from her excellent co-star.

For Love or Money

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 14 April 2010]

In 1871, notorious outlaw Joel McCrea (as Wesley "Wes" McQueen) breaks out of jail with a hacksaw, and heads for the western "Colorado Territory" where he hopes to go straight. Along the way, Mr. McCrea (now calling himself "Chet Rogers") defends a stagecoach from some even nastier outlaws. Thus, he becomes a hero saving fellow passenger Henry Hull (as Fred Winslow) and his shapely dark-haired daughter, Dorothy Malone (as Julie Ann). McCrae and Ms. Malone look romantically inclined, but she is promised to another. Then, McCrea makes the decision to join fellow thieves John Archer (as Reno Blake) and James Mitchell (as Duke Harris) in one last heist…

If you think the last train robbery for McCrea goes without a hitch, you'd be wrong.

First thing McCrea finds problematic is pretty "half-breed" Virginia Mayo (as Colorado Carson), who hangs out with the gang. McCrea orders Ms. Mayo back to El Paso, but she refuses to budge. Mayo hikes up her skirt, whenever possible, to show off her legs - she also wears her blouse pulled down over one shoulder, so it always looks like it's going to slip down and expose her bosom. It never does, but McCrea falls in love. "Colorado Territory" is an great-looking picture, with beautiful black-and-white photography by Sid Hickox. In this westernized version of "High Sierra" (1941), director Raoul Walsh corralling the cast and crew through a rollicking train robbery and aftermath.

****** Colorado Territory (6/11/49) Raoul Walsh ~ Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone, James Mitchell

Everything but the dog

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 8 October 2004]

Who could have been a better choice for doing a western re-make of High Sierra than the original director of High Sierra, Raoul Walsh. He pretty well followed the plot line of High Sierra and had every character in there, but the dog who was an alleged jinx.

It could have been a better film and the trouble is with the miscasting of Joel McCrea. McCrea in my opinion was the solidest of western heroes, at his best when he's playing straight as an arrow good guys. Wes McQueen is not a straightforward good guy at all here and McCrea just can't get a handle on the character. You want to see McCrea at his heroic best, look at stuff like Union Pacific, Four Faces West, or The Virginian to name a few. I think Randolph Scott or Dick Powell would have been better casting here.

That being said it's not a bad film, but it could have been better. The women here are Virginia Mayo and Dorothy Malone playing the parts that Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie did in High Sierra. Mayo is the tough as nails broad in this just like Lupino. Malone's character is far from the innocent that Joan Leslie portrayed. It was another rung up the ladder for Malone to that Oscar she got for Written on the Wind.

The rest of the cast is populated with such veterans as Henry Hull, Basil Ruysdael, Harry Woods, Monte Blue, John Archer, and James Mitchell, stalwarts one and all. Frank Puglia plays a Franciscan Friar who winds up the real "winner" in this film.

The ending is different than High Sierra and I think Walsh took some inspiration from Duel in the Sun. I won't say more.

Exceptional Raoul Walsh Western

[Kalaman · 23 April 2003]

Joel McCrea stars as the outlaw Wes McQueen who makes one last train robbery in Raoul Walsh's exceptional and sprawling Western remake of his own "High Sierra." As many commentators have pointed out, "Colorado Territory" is a major improvement over "High Sierra", a better-than-average Bogart vehicle marred by John Huston' tepidly moralizing screenplay. Walsh's breathtaking use of the landscape (especially toward the end) in "Colorado Territory" makes it more fascinating and exciting work. Walsh's heroes are often characterized by adventure. McCrea's Wes McQueen recalls such Walsh protagonists as Eddie Bartlett, George Custer, Gentleman Jim, Capt. Nelson, and Jeb Rand. They have a way of going too far. They are really existentialist heroes. Walsh's depiction of McQueen and his loyal bad girl's (Virginia Mayo) final descent into self-destruction is truly grim and pessimistic. Although "Colorado Territory" is devoid of the psychoanalytic verve of Walsh's "Pursued"(arguably his greatest Western), it is nonetheless a brilliant and memorable film that needs more following and appreciation.

Powerful

[evening1 · 7/10 · 26 February 2021]

There is a lot to recommend this gripping tale of redemption.

I hadn't known of Joel McCrae from anything but "Sullivan's Travels" (1941), so I found his portrayal of outlaw Wes McQueen to be revealing. He is ruggedly handsome, unflappable, a keen observer of human nature, and a person who cares about his fellow man, despite being a train robber condemned to hang at Leavenworth.

Also excellent here is Virginia Mayo as sultry Colorado Carson, a half-Indian drifter born "under a chuck wagon" but not quite given up on finding a life for herself. "We don't serve fancy, but it's hot," she tells Wes as she hands him a steaming plate of food. She sure does like the look of this bad boy! I had only previously seen Ms. Mayo in a far more conventional role, in "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946). This film reveals her talents far more convincingly. She's incredible in the movie's penultimate frames!

This film, set against some striking desert backdrops, features a number of exciting chase scenes. It's thrilling to see Wes, traveling incognito aboard Wells Fargo, outwit and outgun a posse of stagecoach robbers. Later, we're amazed to see how he catches up with a steam locomotive and pulls off a daring heist. Sheer screen magic!

This film has some excellent dialogue. When Colorado first tries to cozy up to Wes, he's blunt: "I got plans," he says. "There's no room in 'em for you. Not for the long pull." (Ladies, do you wish some of the guys in your own past had been this truthful? I sure do.)

Later, when Colorado learns that Wes meant to marry a supposedly nice girl, Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone), she shows off a little of her own psychological chops: "You can bust out of jail, but you can't bust out of who you are," she tells him, to which Wes replies, "You can, if you're set on it." (I'd like to believe that it's so.)

Later, when the usually perspicacious Wes realizes that Julie would turn him in for a $20,000 reward -- up from the mere $500 for his jailbreak -- he drops the matrimony plan and takes Colorado up on her offer.

"You won't be sorry, Wes," she says with great poignance. "I'll make you love me."

One aspect of this film that I found intriguing was the presence of Native Americans in a variety of roles. Particularly interesting were the group chants that would arise at nightfall, leaving one wondering as to their meaning and adding an element of apprehension.

There's redemption in this film, but not of the sort we'd have guessed. Wes and Colorado weren't conventional heroes, but they left their corner of the West a better place. This movie's ending defines bittersweet.

Joel McCrea >>> TOP HORSEMAN

[mhantholz · 10/10 · 31 December 2019]

Everything about this film has been said elsewhere here except for this film's tip-top HORSE ACTION. Few men in Golden Age Hollywood could sit a horse like Joel McCrea. I've been at the racetrack all my life and I've seen the best riders---Joel McCrea was right up there with the best of them. At a full gallop,, he's stock-still, one with his horse, an ice-man. Joel McCrea has the coolest horse, a chestnut with a nice blaze on his nose. The way he handles this horse is a tell---this was J.M.'s own personal horse, for sure. You don't get horse action this fine out of some crap nag from some corral somewhere. Director Raoul Walsh was a master at staging/photographing top-quality horse action, a real delight and revelation for horse fans. Consider this scene towards the end, one of many in this classic: J.M. is at a full-out gallop coming straight at the camera, when J.M. brings the horse to a sharp halt while AT THE SAME TIME getting the horse to do a half-pivot, stopping with the horse's left side---in perfect profile---at just the right amount of horse visible in the shot, as if the horse hit PREDETERMINED marks. This horse is then perfectly still, doesn't even move his head a little bit. You don't get that level of performance out of a horse you just met for the first time this morning: It takes THOUSANDS of hours of working together with a horse to achieve what J.M. does with this horse. And J.M. and his ultra-cool horse have real Old School star quality---they make it look easy. These "actors" today (hawk-*ptoo*) when they make what passes for westerns, they sit a horse like scared little boys. These modern-day "westerns" come unglued when it comes to horse action. If you are fed up, give yourself a break and stream you some JOEL McCREA and see what REAL horsemanship is all about.

Familiar but Entertaining Territory

[hughbetcha-25708 · 7/10 · 16 June 2021]

Bank robber Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea), awaiting transportation to a penitentiary, breaks out of jail in Missouri and rides off to the far west to meet up with his boss (Basil Ruysdael), who has another crime planned. But there's no honour among thieves, and the gang that has been put together for the job is as much a danger to its success as is any lawman.

An entertaining western, "Colorado Territory" has a more complex plot than many of its genre, with changing loyalties and more than a few betrayals. As McQueen states in a good turn of phrase, there is "so much double-dealing from this deck, it's dog-eared." The film does not have an unusually long running time (94 minutes) but puts a lot of story into that hour and a half.

"Colorado Territory" is more than a little reminiscent of a film noir, which should come as no surprise as this is a re-make of "High Sierra" (1941), also directed by Walsh. The choice of setting - the American west of 1871 - is a good one, however, and the script does more than simply drop the plot into an earlier century; it is, for the most part, tailored for the world of cowboys and outlaws.

There is a problem with the script in that it contains words and phrases - slang, mostly - that just don't ring true to the era. The robbers use the word 'heist', which, even if it had been used in that time-period, nonetheless comes off as too characteristic of the 1940s and later. In fact, here, 'heist' means 'to raise' - men are told to "heist 'em" (put their hands up) - while 'hoist' is supposedly bandit-jargon for a robbery. A former Pinkerton detective is referred to as a 'gumboots', the equivalent of 'gumshoe' that I found far too early a usage.

This element aside, there is little to complain about in the film. Nothing looks like it was filmed on a stage, and some interesting locations are used, such as an abandoned Spanish settlement, the ruins of which become the outlaws' hide-out, and an old Indian Pueblo, high on a cliff.

The characters are more than normally deep for a western; the genre often gives the protagonist a past, but a simple, one-incident past that defines his present. Here McQueen's past is entangled with his new acquaintance of a settler's daughter (Dorothy Malone), while his future may involve another woman (Virginia Mayo) with a strong personality of her own. The other actors are all very capable, notably Henry Hull (who was in High Sierra, as well), James Mitchell and John Archer (father of actress Anne Archer).

The direction is very good, as might be expected from the man behind the camera on "White Heat" and "They Drive By Night". The action includes run-away stage-coaches, train robberies and shoot-outs, but also leans heavily on tension and revelation in conversations.

While its film noir origins are plain enough, "Colorado Territory" also makes a credible and creditable western, with McCrea on the wrong side of the law for once. Well-written, well-directed and well-acted, it is well worth a look.

Check Out one of the Best Westerns

[LeonLouisRicci · 10/10 · 28 September 2013]

Scathing Dialog that evokes Film-Noir (as does the Story), solid Performances by the entire Cast, Excellent and slightly askew Locations and Settings, Gunplay and Violence that doesn't Pull Punches, a Hard-Boiled tone with an Ending that is Downbeat and foreshadows the Cynical Mann, Boetticher Fifties Standouts in the Genre.

Yes, the Story is a Remake of High Sierra (1941) also done by Director Raoul Walsh, but this is every bit as Powerful in its Western Setting, and in some respects even more so. Virginia Mayo melts the Screen with Her Beauty and stands by Her Man with as much Heart and Dedication that befits the Noir Anti-Heroine, and thankfully there is no Dog this time.

The Script is loaded with many Quotables. Speaking of a Cemetery, the always intense but likable Joel McCrea reminisces..."It was the prettiest bone orchard you ever seen, looked over by stone Angels." There are many others. A slightly overlooked Film that is as Good as the Genre gets and is one of those that should attract Movie Buffs not usually enamored by Westerns.

"Don't get the trigger itch...I want no funerals on this picnic!"

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 3 April 2008]

W.R. Burnett's book "High Sierra", filmed in 1941 with Humphrey Bogart as a jewel thief, gets a rousing (and uncredited) western reworking here, with the main character's vocation changed to train robber. In 1871 Missouri, a criminal set for execution breaks out of prison and holes up in the valley with two of his cronies, where they plot another railroad heist. Director Raoul Walsh (who also helmed "High Sierra" for Warner Bros.) gets superlative usage out of the dusty, craggy locations, with cinematographer Sid Hickox capturing the mountain terrain and cloudy skies in gorgeously expressive black-and-white. Joel McCrea is surprisingly comfortable playing the semi-bad guy (though definitely one with a heart of mush...and a yen for marriage!), however some of the supporting characters are a bit of a stretch. Virgina Mayo (she of the glassy-eyed stare) does what she can in the insane role of an ex-dance hall girl, Dorothy Malone is completely lost in the underwritten part of a well digger's daughter who wants a better life, and John Archer and James Mitchell are two cardboard villains. The picture gets by on the strength of its considerable technical merits and by McCrea's performance; with his easy gait and benign personality, McCrea is likable even when he's shooting down the law (he's shrewd and sturdy, a good man to have around). However, the writing is overheated, and the nutty finale provokes unintended laughs. Story filmed yet again by recycle-happy Warner Bros. in 1955, entitled "I Died a Thousand Times". **1/2 from ****

`The sun goes west and so the opportunity'

[IlyaMauter · 8/10 · 15 May 2003]

Colorado Territory is undoubtedly one of the best films directed by Raoul Walsh.In fact it's sort of a remake of a film Walsh directed 10 years before this one – High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino.

Colorado Territory's story revolves around a very sympathetic outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) who is finally caught and put in jail but obviously not for a very long time, cause his former companions devise a plan to rob the train and are most certainly in need of him to be able to pull it off successfully. So they help him to escape. After Wes succeeds in doing so he finds a refuge in a distant abandoned village in the mountains where he meets his partners together with a spirited and beautiful woman Colorado (Virginia Mayo) who ends up falling in love with him not knowing that his heart already belongs to another very different woman Julie Ann (Dorothy Malone) who in her turn, doesn't know about Wes McQueen being one of the most sought after outlaws in the west. The question now is not who stays with the girl, but who stays with the guy in the most fateful and poignant film's ending. 8/10

A none too subtle remake

[mik-19 · 6/10 · 5 October 2004]

Wild west baddie Wes McQueen consents to participate in just one more heist before reforming and settling down, but is double-crossed by his partners, and prospective girlfriend.

Why Raoul Walsh thought he could go one better on his 1941 masterpiece 'High Sierra' is beyond me, and 'Colorado Territory' is a pretty poor Western remake of a great action movie, none too subtly disguised and most of the time just going through the motions. It has none of the original movie's vividness or whirling virtuosity.

McCrea does well in a part that would become second nature to him through the 1950s, but all in all the movie is a huge disappointment for fans of Raoul Walsh.

poetic

[loydmooney · 9/10 · 28 March 2005]

In the entire history of western movies, there have been very few shot through with poetic dialog. The Wild Bunch is one of them. The dialog is in fact so poetic that it is hard to miss, and more than once its quality has been noted by various well known film critics.

Colorado Territory, pound for pound is easily its equal. And why? Not Walsh, not Mc Crae, not any of the usual reasons given. In fact if you look at Walsh's other western works, and they are numerous and fine, none of them come close to this one in it's poetry. So either you chalk it up to just sheer luck, or you have to look elsewhere. Yet before I point to that reason, let's look at some of the lines...which probably will be considered a spoiler so, if you don't to hear any of the talk find a review without spoilers, and here goes: we're a couple of fools in a dead village dreaming about something that'll never happen... or earlier Mc Crae is warning two of his outlaw companions about being careful not to double cross him, and tells them about two others that tried to, and says.....they're buried outside Lawrence Kansas. Prettiest little bone orchard you'd ever want to see. Little stone angels watching over them.........or later Mc Crae is telling Pluffner, the railroad detective that has double crossed him, and now Mc Crae has found him out....robbing the dead....and the detective turns and exclaims his innocence, that the man he is robbing his died naturally, that its all part of the game, Mc Crae comes back with.... .... not this game, there's been so much bottom dealing from this deck it's dog eared..................and proceeds to shoot the detective.

Yet this was not the last time that western lovers would be treated to such wonderful stuff, except they would have to go to other directors, one being Stuart Heisler, and DALLAS.

Or Andre De Toth and SPRINGFIELD RIFLE.

The key ingredient in all this not being the director but a writer that heretofore has gone completely unnoticed by virtually any critic. Namely John Twist.

John Twist along with Borden Chase were the two finest writers of western cinema, period. Chase was, is, of course well known. Twist has for some reason been invisible. However one day, some discerning crew with get together for a retrospective of his films and the charade will be over. But trust me, western lovers, see his name on any film and you can always count on some of the best dialog ever written for westerns. Colorado Territory being his best.

As for the other comments here about the movie, they are pretty right on. This film is the equal overall of any of Mann's films, Boettichers, is better than most of Ford's, in fact only slightly below Red River and My Darling Clementine.

The only flaw is a rather mawkish handling of the Dorothy Malone situation: the whole business with her slows things down a bit. But anytime Mc Crae is not around her the film is about as perfect as a western can get.

Don't miss is.

Raoul Walsh Western, High Sierra (1941) remake, features Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo

[jacobs-greenwood · 6/10 · 16 December 2016]

Directed by Raoul Walsh, based on the W.R. Burnett novel High Sierra, this remake of the 1941 film, with a screenplay co-written by Edmund H. North (Patton (1970)), was made into a slightly above average Western starring Joel McCrea. The cast also includes Virginia Mayo, Dorothy Malone, Henry Hull, James Mitchell, Morris Ankrum, and Ian Wolfe, among others.

McCrea plays the outlaw with a price on his head that escapes from prison and vows to go straight. Unfortunately, his path leads him to his old partner (Basil Ruysdael), and his new gang (John Archer, Mitchell, and Harry Woods), who convinces him to try one last railroad heist to set him up for life. Shortly after his escape, McCrea's character had met another man (Hull) and his attractive daughter (a brunette Malone) who were heading west also, when he saves them from a stagecoach robbery. Hull's character was trying to get his daughter away from an impossible relationship while hoping to find success farming the barren landscape. McCrea's character is attracted to her, and hopes to return to his farming roots (and her) after his last score.

Mayo plays (the title character?) Colorado Carson, a tough, attractive young woman from a harsh upbringing that finds herself among the gang. McCrea's character initially insists that Colorado will lead to nothing but trouble before he decides to protect her from the others. Wolfe plays the railroad employee who's the gang's inside track to the heist; he double crosses them by telling the Marshal (Ankrum; Monte Blue appears uncredited as another) of their plans, for the reward money on McCrea. Frank Puglia plays Brother Tomas, a monk (?) who happens to be in the deserted town that the gang calls their hideout.

McCrea and Mayo outsmart the others during the heist, escaping with the loot while leaving them to be captured. They return to Ruysdael's to find he's been killed by Woods, who wounds McCrea before McCrea kills him. They then use Hull's place to hideout, temporarily, while Mayo removes the bullet from McCrea's shoulder. Malone almost gives them away when the Marshal et al arrive, but they're able to escape, again temporarily, before the Marshal corners McCrea, who'd left Mayo behind, at some cliff-side ruins. She arrives to inadvertently lure him to his death, having been tricked into it by the Marshal. She is shot dead as well and the two die holding hands.

Second-Hand Stuff.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 2 April 2008]

Raoul Walsh does his usual yeoman-like job of directing this mediocre Western with Joel McRae as an outlaw trying to make one last big haul by robbing a train, Dorothy Malone as the young woman he thinks he loves, and Virginia Mayo as the girl who is, as he finally realizes, made for him.

Walsh also directed the original story, "High Sierra", with Humphrey Bogart, Joan Leslie, and Ida Lupino in the same roles. "Colorado Territory" absconds with the story but leaves John Huston's felicitous script behind as scraps.

Walsh has never directed a dull film, and this isn't dull. What it is, is simple minded. All of the subtlety and ambiguity that made the original so fine, so artful, is discarded and instead the characters and their motives are simplified to the extent that any particularly aware third-grader can grasp them.

What I mean is -- how should I put this? Maybe I can make the point by giving an example. In "High Sierra", Bogart meets a simple, kind old man with a crippled grand-daughter who needs an operation. That's the teen-aged Joan Leslie we're talking about, and, man, she looks good, though rendered sullen by her disability. Bogart comes into some loot and gives much of it to Joan Leslie's family so that she can have her operation. Meanwhile, he falls in with Ida Lupino, a whore who has been kicked around, loves Bogart, and will do anything for him. Before adopting Lupino, Bogart tells her that there's no place in his life for her. (He's thinking of settling down with Joan Leslie once she's fixed up.) Leslie's operation is a success and from her recovery bed she showers Bogart with gratitude -- but not love, as she explains to Grampa. On his next visit, Bogart finds her drinking and jitterbugging frenetically with a boyfriend. Leslie is still grateful to Bogart but she rejects his possessiveness, and he leaves her forever with Ida Lupino. Huston and Walsh fill these scenes with love, ambiguity, a frantic hope and a hopeless remorse.

In the remake, the Joan Leslie figure, Dorothy Malone, has nothing wrong with her except that she is greedy and treacherous. Although McRae gives the family enough money to start their farm, Malone tries to alert the sheriff to MacRae's presence in order to collect the twenty-thousand-dollar reward. The Ida Lupino character, Virginia Mayo, actually has to have a physical fight with Malone to keep her from rushing out the door. There is no ambiguity, no sense of real life. Malone is not a nice, if slightly empty-headed girl, who wants to just enjoy her new freedom. She's a bad girl.

"Colorado Territory" is miscast, as well. Joel McRae is a good light comedian or light action star -- a nice guy. He's not the tough ex-con that Bogart was. And Virginia Mayo is supposed to be part Pueblo Indian, though she looks about as Indian as Jean Harlow, the heavy makeup notwithstanding. One of the most touching (because grounded) elements of the original is that Bogart had to give up the vivacious young Joan Leslie for the older, husky, used, and rather plain Ida Lupino. In the remake, the succulent Virginia Mayo of 1949 could give Dorothy Malone a run for her money any day. It's like a high-schooler having to give up his romance with the head of the girl's cheer-leading squad for the love of the Prom Queen. There's not much of a sense of loss.

I've picked out just one set of relationships to compare, but any viewer could easily spot a dozen more in which the original is superior to the remake. (Humphrey Bogart, describing what a Tommy gun sounds like, taps his finger three times on the desk and says, "Tap tap tap. That's all." Nothing like that here.) Nice location shooting, but if you want to see a movie made for adult sensibilities, rent the original. This remake is pretty watered down.