Rock Island Trail (1950) User Reviews (10)

Mix of history and romance

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 30 March 2007]

I found it interesting that this movie is based on some historical fact. I thought it an interesting tale of railroad expansion in the United States and could well imagine that the steamship industry would fight that expansion, just as the car and trucking industries brought about it's minor status today.

Forrest Tucker was excellent in the lead, as was Adele Mara, who played his love interest. Lorna Gray was very good as the Indian princess and the introduction of women smoking was an interesting addition. I always enjoy Chill Wills and Jeff Coorey as young Abe Lincoln, small time lawyer, was also quaint, and supposedly true.

Godd movie if you are looking for a western.

Enjoyable "period piece" western

[coltras35 · 7/10 · 29 January 2022]

Rock Island Trail is centered on the building of a railroad bridge over the Mississippi River.

Forrest Tucker (as Reed Loomis) is the head honcho of the outfit in charge of building the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River between Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa in 1856. He must battle rival paddle wheel steamer and stagecoach lines to break their monopoly on transport.

An expansion storyline told with gusto, humour and the usual fictitious fun stuff interspersed throughout, which is conflicts in the form of shootouts, fistfights, ship ramming into the bridge setting it on fire, an Indian attack at the end and a mop fight (no joke!). It's lighthearted entertaining fare with Forest Tucker playing a hero for a change, and he does really well. Pity he didn't make more as a lead. I also liked the snappy dialogue and the song.

A mixed blessing!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 25 March 2018]

U.K. release title: TRANSCONTINENT EXPRESS.

SYNOPSIS: The construction engineer of the Rock Island Railroad pushes the line west across the Mississippi in spite of financial complications, a treacherous steamboat tycoon, and hostile Indians. - Copyright Summary.

NOTES: Dedicated to the men and women who devoted their lives to developing and perfecting the railroads of the U.S.A.

COMMENT: Routine western made more palatable by a screenplay that has a slight but genuine leavening of wit. And any film with Bruce Cabot as the villain is necessarily one worth seeing. Bruce and Bruce's double have some fine fights with Tucker and Tucker's double, beginning with an outlandish duel with mops dipped in boiling soup. Unfortunately their climactic confrontation is disappointing.

Though there's plenty of action at the climax, the script provides a thumbs down cop-out for the romantic triangle. Miss Mara is an uninteresting heroine anyway. Still, the support cast is loaded with familiar figures including Dick Elliott as a train conductor, Olin Howland as a barman with a bucket of water, James Flavin as a grumbling track-layer. The Jeff Corey episode is alone worth seeing the film.

If only Kane's direction were not so flat and scrupulously uninteresting, if only Republic's production values (despite the use of actual locations and a real railroad and clever miniatures) were a little higher and relied less on such obvious cost-saving devices as phony backdrops and cycloramas and day for night photography. Even the color tends to be flat and uninteresting despite its warm brown hues and blue cloudy skies.

Grant Withers is miscast as Mara's financier father, Chill Wills has his usual serio-comic role (nice scene with Jack Pennick as an eager trooper).

Yes, the film has all the makings, including plenty of action, but it doesn't quite make the higher grade.

OTHER VIEWS: The script plays like a John Wayne/Vera Ralston/Albert Dekker reject that has been farmed out to Republic's second-stringers. Even in its boring triangle with Adrian Booth half-heartedly giving the charmless Adele Mara a run for the surly affections of frozen-faced Forrest Tucker, the movie is strictly a black and white affair: stolid hero, loyal comic sidekick, frilly girl, deep-dyed villain. The fights between hero and heavy form the best part of the action, culminating in a fair, if familiar, action climax.

Whilst the color is variable and the direction totally dull, production values indicate a fair-sized budget. Vintage train buffs will enjoy the movie. So will fans of the Lydecker Brothers' realistic miniatures. - JHR writing as George Addison.

This movie is the story of my ancestor's life, in part

[rfd10 · 21 August 2002]

I saw this movie, Rock Island Trail, on cable about a year ago as I was looking for something to watch. As I got involved in the plot, I realized it was partly based on the life of my Grandfather's Grandfather, Henry Farnam of New Haven, Connecticut. Mr. Farnam was a railroad builder and president of the Rock Island Line in the 1850s. He built the first bridge across the Mississippi at Rock Island and the bridge in the movie looked just like it. The steamship industry did run a boat into the bridge and burned it down. They then sued and Mr. Farnam hired Abraham Lincoln to defend the railroad. The railroad won the right to build the bridge as it was not a hazard to navigation. All this was in the movie. The western, shoot-'em-up and romantic parts were fictional. I would like to see this movie again and see how much was fact and how much fiction. Mr. Farnam's papers are at the library at Yale University. He was a big donor to Yale and the city of New Haven.

"Progress Can't Be Stopped."

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 4 July 2014]

A rambunctious Western about Forrest Tucker pitting his Rock Island Line against the retrograde stagecoach or steamboat line run by Bruce Cabot, the heavy, who doesn't want the railroad cutting into his profits. Chill Wills is the earthy comic sidekick. Adele Mara is the girl the two principals fight over. She had the oddest eyes. My Dx? Thyrotoxic storm, secondary to an acute infraction of the myoculinary.

The writing is by James Edward Grant. His point of view was never very subtle. There tends to be a patriarchal leader and the others were followers, especially the women. He later went on to write for John Wayne's later Westerns because, as the Duke put it, "He knows how to write for me." The result was a string of turkeys, unfortunately, and the image of the unyielding Wayne that we've all come to love. When he spoke, it was like one of the faces on Mount Rushmore opening its mouth to utter some rocky platitude.

And either the writing or the editing leaves some events without explanation. I don't know why -- just before the climactic battle -- several stalled cars blow up. Is it good or bad that the bridge was destroyed? It's treated as good.

Here, Grant is given to more flowery dialog. When someone accounts for an incident, the listener comments, not "That's reasonable" or "That's possible," but "That's plausible." (Twice.) "Shall" is sometimes substituted for "will," willy nilly, so to speak. Sometimes it works. "Kirby has such a wealth of manners and such a poverty of ethics." "I grow repetitious in my spinsterhood." Not much attention is paid to the other elements of the film. R. Dale Butts did the music which, in one scene, is directly ripped off from "The Lieutenant Kije Suite." You won't hear the song, "Rock Island Line," and you shouldn't, because it was a prisoner's song in Arkansas and first recorded in 1934. Intead, you'll hear a terrible paean to the sights out West. Bruce Cabot and Roy Corey (as Abe Lincoln) may wear proper dress but everybody else looks like an ordinary cowboy in an ordinary Western. Weapons: ditto. The direction by Joseph Kane is pedestrian except that the climactic action scene aboard the train is handled well and there is some admirable stunt work.

Beautiful costumes

[HotToastyRag · 6/10 · 12 September 2023]

Rock Island Trail takes audiences through the journey of the advent of the railroad through the Illinois territory. In the decades before the Civil War, when cowboys and Indians still battled, and stagecoach passengers were still scared of "new train cars", Forrest Tucker is a railroad man with a vision. There's a pretty exciting scene towards the beginning where a stagecoach and a train race; it's obvious to us who will win, but back in the day, people actually took bets on it!

Costumer Adele Palmer clad her leading actress Adele Mara in countless gorgeous gowns. In every scene but one, she dons a new outfit with ornate material, great detail, and jaw-dropping style. This movie is worth watching just for the fashion eye candy! There was also a strong blue theme present in the Technicolor landscape, an interesting choice. I'm not sure if Palmer, director Joseph Kane, or art director Frank Arrigo were responsible, but it certainly made an impression. Amidst the brown dirt and golden rolling hill landscape, the cornflower blue really showed the influence of progress and civilization.

The romance started off being cute, but it grew almost upsetting. Forrest and Adele had a spunky banter together, and it only took one scene for him to steal her away from her fiancé Bruce Cabot and make a lifelong enemy of him. But once they fell in love, Forrest flatly refused to marry her. He insisted that because she had money and he didn't, she could boss him around in the marriage; he wanted it the other way around. So, he planned on keeping her hanging until he made his fortune. She would always smile sweetly at him and say, "I'll wait," but in that day and age (or any for that matter), it was insulting to take her for granted and steal away years of her youth with an empty promise. She kept waiting and waiting and waiting! Someone else with more respect for her and less pride in his pocketbook could have swept her off her feet and made an honest woman out of her.

In another scene, Forrest gets so angry that his workforce imbibes on a barrel of whiskey after a long day's work, he pours alcohol on a man's back and lights it on fire. Is he really supposed to be a good guy? Granted, Bruce was no Prince Charming either, but this definitely wasn't a Randolph Scott type of western. If you don't mind having the hero being a bit of an antihero, you can check it out. For me, the costumes were far and away the highlight. A close second was an adorable cameo by character actor Jeff Corey, playing a tall, lanky small-town Illinois lawyer with a top hat. . .

Something not in this movie which should have been

[jhobson1 · 4/10 · 29 May 2005]

I saw this movie, and wanted to see just how accurate it was, so I looked at a history of the Rock Island Railroad. I discovered that Iowa City posted a $50,000 bonus to the builders if the railway reached the station in the town and a train came into the station on or before midnight December 31, 1855.

On December 31st, in a temperature of 30 degrees below zero, the rails were just 1,000 feet short of their goal. Crews worked feverishly to finish the job. Ties were dropped on the staked earth and rails spiked hurriedly in place. Finally, with only minutes to go, a signal was given for the engine to approach. It couldn't move, because it was frozen to the track. With the help of every available man, they pushed the engine into the station with only seconds to spare.

This would have made an exciting sequence for the film, and it would have been historically accurate. But they didn't even try to put it in.

Solid action, with a few wrinkles

[halhorn · 8/10 · 31 August 2005]

Forrest Tucker had numerous leading-man opportunities following his breakthrough role in SANDS OF IWO JIMA. This was his first and arguably best. As Reed Loomis, he is persuasive as he attempts to raise money for his railroad expansion but is a worthy man of action as well, great with a gun, his fists and, as he demonstrates in a memorable scene with Bruce Cabot, even a mop dipped in boiling soup (you have to see it). Adele Mara makes an appealing leading lady as always, Bruce Cabot is a sturdy villain, and there's great support from erstwhile Republic leading lady Adrian Booth and perennial sidekick Chill Wills.

As action-packed as just about any Republic western, with one of the studio's strongest overall casts. Fast-paced and well handled by Joseph Kane. Turns up frequently these days on Encore's Western Channel. Recommended.

Epic rail and bridge-building story, with romance and humor

[weezeralfalfa · 8/10 · 16 May 2017]

Predominantly, a light-hearted railroad "eastern", much like Cecil de Milles' "Union Pacific", of 1939, except shot in color. Includes constant friction between Reed Loomis(Forrest Tucker), of the pre-Civil War Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad and Kirby Morrow(Bruce Cabot), representing rival steamboat interests, during the early years of this rail line, when it was building track across Illinois to Rock Island, and then a bridge across the Mississippi, to Davenport and beyond. We have a couple of incidences involving Native Americans, one featured in the climax, with many Sioux(presumably)attacking the moving and stationary train, with bows and arrows, mainly. Eventually, another horde of Native Americans(presumably, Sioux-hating Sauk) arrive and create quite a chaotic scene. About half way through the film, a woman(Lorna Gray, as Aleeta)shows up, speaking Parisian French, but claiming she is the granddaughter of the Sauk peace chief. When going to visit her Sauk friends, she dons her Sauk outfit.

Much of the general background of the plot is based on history. The CRIP railway began in 1851, and this story evidently takes place 5-6 years later. The current financial panic of 1857 is mentioned, as affecting the financing of rail expansion.

There's plenty of action dispersed between the romantic and business talk scenes. Tucker, along with Chill Wills(as Hogger), provide most of the humor., and mainly at the expense of Morrow or his henchmen. It's soon pretty clear that Reed(Tucker) will steal the choice female(Adele Mara, as Constance Strong from Morrow. She is the daughter of David Strong, apparently the chief financier of the railroad, whom we meet periodically.

Some episodes I don't much understand. For example, under the cover of darkness, Morrow sneaks on a boat loaded with cotton and fuels, and detaches its mooring, starting a fire. Meanwhile, Reed swims out to the boat and climbs aboard to fight with Morrow. Eventually , flames are leaping all around them , Morrow jumps overboard before Reed, when explosions begin to disintegrate the boat. It is now close to the bridge, and destroys part of it so it cannot be repaired. This followed by a court case, in which the railroad is represented by Abe Lincoln, based on a historical happening. Lincoln often represented a railroad in litigation.

You have to see the "duel" between Reed and Morrow occasioned by a remark by Reed that Morrow took offense to. Reed gets the choice of weapon. He chooses a pair of nearby soaking mops. The ensuing fight, in a restaurant, is quite funny.

Several times, a song, apparently titled " The Rock Island Train" is sung, beginning with a barbershop quartet, with Adele chiming in. She started her entertainment career very young, as a singer and dancer.

It's nice to see Forrest Tucker in the Hero's role. In my experience, he was usually cast as a villain. He did a good job.

Available in color at YouTube

A railroad line and a steamboat company

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 30 December 2023]

This Republic picture tells the story of the Rock Island Line, a railway operation that carried passengers through midwestern territory. Eventually the line serviced 14 states and operated for 130 years, from the pre-Civil War era until 1980. The historical drama that plays out on screen concerns itself with efforts to lay track from Rock Island, Illinois to Davenport, Iowa.

Several complications occur which nearly prevent an engineer turned entrepreneur (Forrest Tucker) responsible for its design from realizing his dream of improved transit that will outperform a rival steamboat company or any stagecoach in the region. The owner of the steamboat business is a shifty type played by Bruce Cabot who's a bit long in the tooth but quite determined to get what he wants.

What does Cabot want exactly? He wants two things. One, to put Tucker out of commission before the railroad takes off; and two, to marry the daughter (Adele Mara) of a wealthy banker (Grant Withers). Trouble is Mara has broken her engagement to Cabot since she has now fallen for Tucker and wants to wed him instead.

But there won't be any marrying until Tucker has proven a success of his proposed venture. He says men who marry rich women get told what to do by those women. In a noble yet chauvinistic way, he intends to accumulate enough riches of his own to be able to tell his woman what to do!

We know that Cabot won't stand idly by as this romance develops. He has ideas to sabotage Tucker at nearly every turn. At one point in the dialogue, Cabot is referred to as having a wealth of manners but a poverty of ethics. That describes him to a tee. To thwart Tucker's efforts, Cabot sends a fiery steamboat towards a new bridge the railroad just built, to destroy it.

The incident with the burned bridge leads to a trial, which Cabot loses. He loses, because Tucker has hired a smart lawyer named Abraham Lincoln (Jeff Corey). Lincoln finds a kid (Jimmy Hunt) who happened to be fishing at the time of the bridge incident. Hunt testifies against Cabot, explaining how the steamboat couldn't have accidentally drifted into the bridge, because there were no currents. The vessel had to have been deliberately steered. This is a slightly implausible plot point but still a cute nod to American history and a figure like Lincoln.

After failing with the bridge, Cabot brokers a deal with some natives. The goal is to start a war that will get in the way of the railroad's expansion. Cabot ends up betrayed by the "injuns" who slash his throat and nearly kill him. It is learned that a native princess (Adrian Booth) who wears exquisite costumes and jewelry has persuaded the men to turn against Cabot.

He's intrigued when he learns how duplicitous she is. He says the man she marries will have an interesting life with her, but also a dangerous one. She is not flattered by the remarks and says "If anymore attempts are made on Mr. Loomis' (Tucker's) life, I shall have you killed in a long painful manner. You would much rather your throat were cut."

Booth's character is hung up on Tucker, though it's clear he will eventually marry Mara by the end of the picture. It is Booth who steals the film with her calm and highly controlled characterization of a somewhat unhinged native gal who can be sweet one moment and deadly the next.

The script depicts her as more than just a one-dimensional "injun woman." Her grandfather is a peaceful old Sauk warrior; and he sent her to Europe. So she's come back to the midwestern territory with a European education and a Parisian sense of fashion. Yet, she still has savage-like tendencies. It's a fascinating role well-played by Booth. The grand finale of the picture has Booth helping Tucker and his men defeat a group of attacking Sioux that had been stirred up by Cabot. For her efforts, Booth's character is killed but she dies a heroine.

Joe Kane, Republic's 'A' western director, gets the most out of his cast and stuntmen during the exciting on-location finale. And there are some wonderfully artistic touches by cinematographer Jack Marta who uses the studio's Trucolor process to distinct advantage.