''Denver and Rio Grande'' is a 1952 American

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film, directed by

Byron Haskin Byron Conrad Haskin (April 22, 1899 – April 16, 1984) was an American film and television director, special effects creator and cinematographer. He is best known for directing '' The War of the Worlds'' (1953), one of many films where he ...

and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is a dramatization of the building of the

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...

, which was chartered in 1870. It was filmed in the summer of 1951 on location on actual D&RG track (now the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad)This branch of the D&RG was used for filming of at least six movies, including the 1956 version of ''Around the World in 80 Days'' and '' Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid''. near Durango, Colorado.Agnew, Jeremy (2012). ''The Old West in Fact and Film: History Versus Hollywood''. McFarland & Company: Jefferson, North Carolina, , p.97 The film's storyline is a fictional account based on two factual right-of-way struggles in 1878-1879 between the D&RG and the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

(here the Cañon City & San Juan RR The fictional CC&SJ bore the name of an actual company organized by the Santa Fe in 1877 as its legal proxy (the AT&SF was not incorporated in the state of Colorado at the time) in the right-of-way battle and later merged into AT&SF's Pueblo and Arkansas Valley RR.): across the

Raton Pass Ratón Pass is a 7,834 ft (2,388 m) elevation mountain pass on the Colorado–New Mexico border in the western United States. It is located on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New ...

from

Trinidad, Colorado Trinidad is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. The population was 8,329 as of the 2020 census. Trinidad lies north of Raton, New Mexico, and s ...

Raton, New Mexico Raton ( ) is a city and the county seat of Colfax County in northeastern New Mexico. The city is located just south of Raton Pass. The city is also located about 6.5 miles south of the New Mexico–Colorado border and 85 miles west of Texas. His ...

, where an armed confrontation actually took place, and the " Royal Gorge War" over a route between

Cañon City A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cu ...

and Leadville, Colorado."Historically, the right-of-way battles were a draw. The Santa Fe reached Raton Pass first and forced the "little company" to back down. However the Rio Grande, after initially losing in the courts to the claims of the CC&SJ, prevailed in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1879. Filming began shortly after the release of '' Santa Fe'', starring Randolph Scott. which interpreted the railroad war from the point of view of the AT&SF. ''Santa Fe'', however, had been filmed in Prescott, Arizona, without access to the actual locations, and portrayed the D&RG as an honorable competitor. Both films followed an entirely fictional depiction in the 1950 western ''

A Ticket to Tomahawk ''A Ticket to Tomahawk'' is a 1950 American Western film directed by Richard Sale and starring Dan Dailey and Anne Baxter. It was released by 20th Century Fox. Marilyn Monroe appeared in one of her earliest roles. Plot In 1876, Johnny Jameson ...

'', which was shot on the same Silverton Line trackage as ''Denver and Rio Grande''.''A Ticket to Tomahawk'' was a semi-comedic musical vehicle for

Dan Dailey Daniel James Dailey Jr. (December 14, 1915 – October 16, 1978) was an American dancer and actor. He is best remembered for a series of popular musicals he made at 20th Century Fox such as '' Mother Wore Tights'' (1947). Biography Early life D ...

. Its plot of the first narrow gauge railroad through the Rockies had as the antagonist not a competing railroad but a stagecoach line. ''Denver and Rio Grande'' features a spectacular head-on collision between two Denver and Rio Grande Western locomotives #319 and #345 (painted as the #268) that were slated for retirement and scrapping, filmed July 17, 1951.

Plot

In the late 1870s, chief engineer Gil HarknessHarkness's real life counterpart was Rio Grande Chief Engineer John Armstrong McMurtrie. and construction foreman Jim VesserVesser's real life counterpart was Rio Grande construction supervisor Robert Foster Weitbrec. are surveying a new route for the

(D&RG) through the

Royal Gorge The Royal Gorge is a canyon of the Arkansas River located west of Cañon City, Colorado. The canyon begins at the mouth of Grape Creek, about west of central Cañon City, and continues in a west-northwesterly direction for approximately until ...

in Colorado. Vesser learns that a crew from the competing Cañon City & San Juan Railroad is also in the gorge and confronts former friend Bob Nelson and his unscrupulous boss, McCabe. McCabe shoots Nelson in the back during a fight but he and crony Johnny Buff blame Vesser, who thinks he accidentally shot Nelson while stunned from a blow. Linda Prescott, the secretary of D&RG president General William J. Palmer,General Palmer was the actual founder of the D&RG. believes Vesser to be a cowardly killer. An injunction stops work by the D&RG in the gorge and Vesser suggests they run the CC&SJ men "out on a pole." Linda, who is actually Nelson's sister and is spying for McCabe after being told by him that Vesser murdered her brother, angrily accuses him of acting above the law. Vesser talks Harkness into defying the injunction. When he enters the camp saloon to bring the men back to work, one of McCabe's agitators sparks a brawl over not being paid. Palmer obtains payroll money in Denver, but the train returning him to the construction camp is robbed by three men, who shoot Palmer's accountant. Vesser returns to the saloon, sees two men gambling with a lot of cash when everyone else is broke and accuses them of robbing the payroll. They try to flee towards the CC&SJ camp and a gunfight ensues. Vesser kills one and wounds the other, who Palmer identifies as one of the robbers but says that the unknown third robber is the man who murdered his accountant. Vesser confronts Linda, revealing that he saw her riding in the direction of McCabe's camp, but she dismisses his insinuations. The injunction is lifted but Palmer announces he must go to Denver to keep the company out of

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

(and takeover by the CC&SJ). Linda reveals his plans to McCabe, who assembles his drunken thugs to prevent Palmer from getting to Denver by stealing a D&RG train and seizing all its stations to block the tracks. A D&RG

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

er warns Palmer, who rallies his men to fight McCabe's. Vesser, Palmer and the D&RG men barrel through the blockade. Vesser and Harkness uncouple the engine from the rest of their train and allow it to crash head on into the stolen train to stop it from killing all of the others. Linda has doubts about McCabe after the violence and admits everything, but Palmer lets her go free. Vesser barricades the gorge to keep McCabe in his camp while Palmer continues on to Denver via another branch. Linda returns to the camp and recognizes Buff as the killer of the accountant, who admits it just as McCabe enters. They argue and Buff exposes McCabe as Bob Nelson's killer. McCabe puts dynamite on a train car that will be sent hurtling into Vesser's barricade. Dodging bullets from McCabe and Buff, Linda runs to the barricade to warn Vesser and the others, who scatter in time to avoid the blast. McCabe, however, is shot in the back by Buff and killed in the explosion. Vesser forgives Linda and looks forward to building the railroad.

Cast

Home media

The film was originally released on VHS on November 11, 1998.

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

issues were released on May 29, 2012.

References

Notes Citations

External links

* * * * {{Byron Haskin 1952 films 1952 Western (genre) films American Western (genre) films Films directed by Byron Haskin Films scored by Paul Sawtell Films set in Denver Films set in the 1870s Films shot in Colorado Paramount Pictures films Rail transport films 1950s English-language films 1950s American films