Let me say from the outset, here, that I don't believe that a movie reviewer's job is to cherish the icons of the past merely because they are iconic. While I do believe that the evaluation of each film has to be limited mostly to its own film era and genre, there are times when the standing in history of an era or genre has to be reappraised against evolving artistic standards and political values. If you are one who will be irritated by the debasement of an old icon of cinema, then read no further!

Union Pacific certainly qualifies as an icon of film history and its director, Cecil B. De Mille, even more so. Consider, for example, that when Union Pacific opened in 1939 in Omaha, Nebraska, the city swelled by 250,000 people, essentially doubling the population of the city overnight. The National Guard had to be called out to control the celebration, which included parades and a banquet. A special train carrying the director of the film and its two stars, Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck, made stops between California and Omaha for three days, drawing crowds all along the way. President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially launched, from Washington, the inauguration of the new civic auditorium in Omaha where the film would be shown.

Historical Background: Cecil B. De Mille was one of the most important contributors to making Hollywood what it is today. He was a director, producer, and screenwriter and even, on rare occasions, an actor. Born August 12th, 1881 in Ashfield, Massachusetts, De Mille was the son of an Episcopalian preacher, teacher, and playwright. After De Mille's father died when he was just twelve, his mother supported the family by operating a girls' school and, later, a theatrical company. Cecil followed his brother William, also a famous film director, to The Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. After working a dozen years in his mother's company as an actor, playwright, and general manager, Cecil went into partnership with musician Jesse L. Lansky and Samuel Goldfish (who later changed his name to Goldwyn), forming a company that would grow into Paramount. The first product of the fledging company was The Squaw Man (1914), a colossal film by the standards of the time and a financial and critical success that established De Mille's team as a force in the industry.

De Mille was the acknowledged creative force in the company. He personally produced more than seventy films and participated in other ways in many more, writing scripts or directing particular sequences. De Mille was a consummate showman and quintessential director, intentionally showcasing the directorial trappings, such as his megaphone. He made himself known to the public of filmgoers through such devices as film prologues and a weekly radio show. De Mille used a simplistic style of storytelling combined with spectacular action that would appeal to mass audiences. De Mille "discovered" stars rather than using established ones and put the money thus saved into lavish sets and action scenes. Among the stars launched by De Mille were Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, and Geraldine Farrar.

De Mille was rightwing in his politics and a religious conservative. His religious and historical spectacles, such as The King of Kings (1927), Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), The Crusades (1935), and The Ten Commandments (1956), promoted Christian ideals and Christian superiority while his Americana (The Squaw Man (1931), The Plainsman (1937), and Union Pacific (1939)) epitomized manifest destiny. When Hollywood came under attack in the twenties for supposedly undermining the country's morality, De Mille responded with religious epics. When, later, Hollywood came under attack from McCarthyism, De Mille became a widely hated Hollywood power broker, known for his heavy-handed tactics.

In the late thirties, De Mille had planned to do a film on the Hudson Bay Company but abandoned the idea when he learned that 20th Century Fox had a similar film in the works. He then turned his attention to making a film about the Transcontinental Railway. He was fortunate to acquire the complete support of William Jeffers, who was then head of Union Pacific. Jeffers had political leanings similar to those of De Mille and the two hit it off famously. Jeffers furnished his best trackmen as extras for the film and made available the vintage railcars featured in the film.

The Story: The context of the story is the historic joining of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific to create the transcontinental railway that opened up the west to settlement and symbolically wedded the Californian coast to the East as one great nation. President Lincoln had signed the bill authorizing the expansion of the Union Pacific through the wilderness as one of his last acts before his assassination. The two railways involved were more rivals than collaborators, since the point where the two railways joined would be determined by the rate of progress each company made in laying track. The banker and villain, Asa M. Barrows (Henry Kolker), sees financial potential in buying Central Pacific Stock, selling Union Pacific stock short, and then delaying the progress of the Union Pacific builders by any and all means. He hires low life saloon owner Sid Campeau (Brian Donlevy) to organize the later infamous "Hell on Wheels," consisting of a gambling, booze, and prostitution operation that followed the railroad as it traveled west, distracting the men and resulting in many worker deaths. Campeau's partner is Dick Allen (Robert Preston), a gambler and bon vivant.

The Union Pacific struggles to meet its targets, hamstrung by both the Hell on Wheels and inspections thrown up as obstacles by Barrows. General Grenville M. Dodge (Francis McDonald), who heads up the operation, hires a former Union officer, Capt. Jeff Butler (Joel McCrea), as troubleshooter, to restore order and counter Campeau's influence. It turns out that Butler and Dick Allen are old buddies from the war, but now find themselves on opposite sides. They also quickly become rival suitors for postmistress Mollie Monahan (Barbara Stanwyck), who is daughter of one of the railways best engineers, (J.M. Kerrigan). Allen has been trying to win Mollie's hand for years, but she is put off by his penchant for gambling. Mollie, who wears a cross around her neck like a good Irish girl should, quickly takes a shine to Butler, who is as handsome as Dick but far more righteous. Butler is assigned two Mexican hombres as sidekicks, the whip-toting Fiesta (Akim Tamiroff) and gun-slinging Leach Overmile (Lynne Overman). Working on the other side for Campeau are his henchmen, including Duke Ring (Robert Barrat) and Jack Cordray (Anthony Quinn). Butler has to confront Campeau and his gang, a payroll heist, the conflict between his friendship with Dick Allen and their opposing loyalties, Mollie's sacrifice of her hand to save Butler's bacon, weather obstacles, the back-stabbing Asa Barrows, and a raid by Indians. This being a De Mille film, there is never any doubt that the honorable white man who exudes good Christian values will come out on top.

Themes: The surface theme is that good guys are good and bad guys die young. The subliminal messages include that the best guys are white, Anglo, and Christian, the Irish are hard workers but drink a lot and are unreliable, Native Americans were worthless savages standing in the way of progress, and Mexicans make nice pals in a comic sort of way. Rah, rah America and glory to God!

Production Values: The pace of the story is excellent, building gradually to a dramatic crescendo with plenty of action before the more subdued denouement. Otherwise, however, there are many problems with this film. The characters are mostly shallow and poorly developed. There's the upstanding lawman, Jeff Butler, and the wholesome Irish immigrant lass, Mollie, who removes her crucifix whenever she is about to lie. Only Dick Allen, who is dashing and earnest in his love for Mollie but of dubious character, provides any human complexity. The dialog, especially that of the principal characters, is at the level of comic book lines – one overwrought, melodramatic cliché following on the heels of another. The romance is formulaic as is the conflict between the law and disorder. After watching this film, directed by a famous director who had great influence on the development of the Hollywood we know today, I have a somewhat deeper understanding of why I much prefer foreign films to American ones. Union Pacific was clearly designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator in the movie going public, both in its simplicity and its blatant appeal to American prejudices, ethnocentricity, and racism. There's plenty of action, but the plot and dialog are the stupidest kind of melodramatic oat-opera nonsense. Were the film just one step more insipid than it is, it would tumble over into satire.

The most obvious resort to stereotyping is the depiction of the Native Americans. They are depicted as primitive and ignorant, such as when one becomes alarmed upon encountering a wooden carving of an Indian. When one playful Native American is shot simply for sport by one of the "bad guys," the "justice" meted out is limited to the hero smacking the villain around a bit, as might be appropriate if he had callously shot a stray dog. De Mille's approach to his subject matter seems a defense of manifest destiny, while ignoring the long history of broken treaties and abuses of the Native Americans by the settlers. I am no single-minded apologist for or defender of Native Americans. I've read enough about American history to understand that there were atrocities committed by Native Americans as well as others committed against them. History is mostly written by the victors while the vanquished are relatively voiceless, but the best artists and the best artworks are those that provide an honest and balanced perspective. De Mille's representation of Mexican-Americans and Irish-Americans is scarcely better than his treatment of Native Americans. Though some qualify as "good guys" in the film, the Mexican sidekicks of Jeff Butler are baffoonish and the Irish are presented as mainly good for drinking and manual labor. Stanwyck is required to deliver her lines in a laughable Irish brogue, while spewing a lot of quaint blarney. The hero, on the other hand, is an all-American Anglo type.

Union Pacific was the last of De Mille's black-and-white films and it is very effective chiaroscuro. The costumes and sets are very appealing. On the other hand, the special effects are appallingly primitive. There are times in the film when one can see very clearly that we are watching a model train or filmed scenes running in the background behind the foreground characters. Some of these scenes rank among the most poorly staged that I have ever encountered in movies.

The cast is the strength of the film. They somehow manage to play it straight and for all its worth. Stanwyck was a major star in her day, performing in The Miracle Woman (1931), Stella Dallas (1937), Golden Boy (1939), Ball of Fire (1941), The Lady Eve (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and Executive Suite (1954). Joel McCrea, on the other hand, was relatively unknown when De Mille cast him in Union Pacific, though he had starred in The Most Dangerous Game (1932). He went on to star in Foreign Correspondent (1940), Sullivan's Travels (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Ride the High Country (1962). Robert Preston also had a long successful career, appearing in This Gun for Hire (1942), The Music Man (1962), How the West Was Won (1963), Semi-Tough (1977), and Victor/Victoria (1982). Akim Tamiroff, who provided the comic relief here, appeared in such films as The Corsican Brothers (1951), Tortilla Flat (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Anastasia (1956), and Alphaville (1965). Brian Donleavy, the heavy in this film, appeared in Beau Geste (1939), Jesse James (1939), Wake Island (1942), and many other films. Robert Barrat, who had a minor part in Union Pacific, had roles in The Last of the Mohicans (1936), Northwest Passage (1940), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and Road to Rio (1947). Anthony Quinn, who was related to De Mille, made his debut as one of the henchmen in Union Pacific, but went on to an illustrious career that included appearances in They Died with Their Boots On (1942), The Ox-Bow Incident (1945), La Strada (1954), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Zorba the Greek (1964).

Bottom-Line: Union Pacific was released in one of the greatest years of success for old Hollywood – 1939. It held its own at the box-office against such heady competition as Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Certainly, it is a respected old classic, not withstanding my disdain for the film's formulistic plot, trite dialog, glaringly weak special effects, and unadulterated jingoism. All of the reviews and comments that I came across for this film were positive, which I can only attribute to the phenomenon that it is usually those who admire a film that comment on it, especially for films that are sixty-five years old. Union Pacific has a running time of 135 minutes.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older