Canadian Pacific (1949)

By CinemaSerf

I was never a great fan of Randolph Scott - he never really imposed himself onto the screen, and here he doesn't really either. It doesn't help that the plot is a fairly well trammelled one. He ("Andrews") is the railroad surveyor who falls foul of the local fur traders who fear that the steel monster will decimate local trade. His antagonists are no slouches. "Rourke" (Victory Jory) and "Dynamite Dawson" (J. Carrol Naish) being determined to thwart his engineering plans and so resort to enlisting the help of the local Indians who want no truck with these interlopers at all, much less their destructive construction project that will further destroy their ancestral home. In order to convince the locals that the train would be a good thing for their community, he promises to settle with his gal "Cecille" (the rather wooden Nancy Olson) but that doesn't really cut much ice with an opposition that now has him firmly in it's sights and that sees him soon under the care of local doctor "Edith" (a competent Jane Wyatt) with whom, well you can guess the rest. Indeed, that's really the problem with all of this - it's just too predicable. There is some action now and again and a bit of rousing speechifying too, but for the most part this is an adequately photographed pioneering tale that we've seen a few times before - only with a more charismatic lead. It's watchable, but the title doesn't really help it much and it's all fairly forgettable afternoon cinema fayre.