Westbound is a well above average entry in the canon of the now legendary team of director Budd Boetticher and veteran cowboy star Randolph Scott, already well into middle age when he began this collaboration. The story, set well into the latter half of the Civil War, is a convoluted one concerning gold shipments being diverted from Overland stagecoaches by Confederate sympathizers in what was then Colorado Territory.
The characters are better and more interesting than the story, as Scott's Union man character is willing to manipulate people to get his job done; and given the kinds of people he must contend with in the frontier town of Julesburg one can hardly blame him. Gentleman bad guy Andrew Duggan is a formidable opponent; while Duggan's chief henchman, as ably portrayed by Michael Pate, is way more ruthless than his boss.
Yet Scott's good guy has more than his share of tricks up his sleeve; and he also benefits from patience in his waiting for Duggan to make his move. Alas, things go badly when a stagecoach carrying gold as well as passengers is ambushed and during the attack is sent crashing down a steep hill, killing all aboard. The tide begins to turn after this, as Duggan's villainy is balanced somewhat by a moral conscience.
Drunk and filled with self-loathing for all the damage he's done, Duggan has a confrontation with his already fed up wife (and also ex-Scott galpal), and he undergoes a late in the game change of heart. The pace of this already lively sagebrush saga picks up as the citizen of the town Duggan lords over have begun to turn on him. One senses a mob mentality at work in Julesburg, with Confederate sympathizers at odds with those who support the Union.
The supporting characters are well drawn for this kind of film; and among the more sympathetic,--a wounded in battle and now one-armed Union veteran, his (bodacious) wife--things do not turn out as one might expect. There are unexpected deaths, a tense mood in this divided town, and while at the end good triumphs over evil, this comes at a high price.
Aided by a sprightly David Buttolph score and fine color photography by Peverell Marley, Westbound is a modest western that gets the job done and no doubt satisfied fans of the genre when it first came out some sixty years ago. Randolph Scott was a major star of westerns at this time, yet his age was showing and he would retire from acting for good a few years later. His performance in the film is solid, yet his screen persona was, overall, as unexciting as it was reliable.
The characters are better and more interesting than the story, as Scott's Union man character is willing to manipulate people to get his job done; and given the kinds of people he must contend with in the frontier town of Julesburg one can hardly blame him. Gentleman bad guy Andrew Duggan is a formidable opponent; while Duggan's chief henchman, as ably portrayed by Michael Pate, is way more ruthless than his boss.
Yet Scott's good guy has more than his share of tricks up his sleeve; and he also benefits from patience in his waiting for Duggan to make his move. Alas, things go badly when a stagecoach carrying gold as well as passengers is ambushed and during the attack is sent crashing down a steep hill, killing all aboard. The tide begins to turn after this, as Duggan's villainy is balanced somewhat by a moral conscience.
Drunk and filled with self-loathing for all the damage he's done, Duggan has a confrontation with his already fed up wife (and also ex-Scott galpal), and he undergoes a late in the game change of heart. The pace of this already lively sagebrush saga picks up as the citizen of the town Duggan lords over have begun to turn on him. One senses a mob mentality at work in Julesburg, with Confederate sympathizers at odds with those who support the Union.
The supporting characters are well drawn for this kind of film; and among the more sympathetic,--a wounded in battle and now one-armed Union veteran, his (bodacious) wife--things do not turn out as one might expect. There are unexpected deaths, a tense mood in this divided town, and while at the end good triumphs over evil, this comes at a high price.
Aided by a sprightly David Buttolph score and fine color photography by Peverell Marley, Westbound is a modest western that gets the job done and no doubt satisfied fans of the genre when it first came out some sixty years ago. Randolph Scott was a major star of westerns at this time, yet his age was showing and he would retire from acting for good a few years later. His performance in the film is solid, yet his screen persona was, overall, as unexciting as it was reliable.