"Wes McQueen" (Joel McCrea) is an infamous outlaw who is in jail pending trial for numerous train robberies. With the help of an old partner named "Dave Rickard" (Basil Ruysdael) he manages to escape and meets up with a couple of Dave's new partners, "Duke Harris" (James Mitchell) and "Reno Blake" (John Archer) at an abandoned ghost town in Colorado. Along with these two outlaws is a sexy dance-hall girl from El Paso by the name of "Colorado Carson" (Virginia Mayo). Wes wants to go straight but Dave wants him to rob another train for his sake. Wes reluctantly agrees figuring he can help his old partner and at the same time start a new life with a young lady by the name of "Julie Ann Winslow" (Dorothy Malone). But first he has to overcome a number of double-crosses to accomplish this goal. At any rate, I thought both Joel McCrea and Virginia Mayo performed exceptionally well and I liked the idea of him having to choose between two totally opposite female personalities in Julie Ann and Colorado. Unfortunately, I thought the ending was more than a bit disappointing and I have rated this film accordingly.

Despite the misnomer of a title Warner Bros."Colorado Territory" remains a well liked and memorable forties western. Produced for Warners in 1949 by Anthony Villiers and tightly directed by Raoul Walsh this was the vintage director's reworking of his own classic 1941 Bogart gangster hit "High Sierra" as a western. The result turned out to be an exciting and top notch outdoor western adventure. However its somewhat hoary and clichéd title does tend to give the picture a cheap and dismissive B picture status which is totally unwarranted. They could just as easily have called it simply "Colorado" which not only would have been a title of greater dramatic impact but would also have made reference to the character in the story Calorado Carson as played by Virginia Mayo. Written for the screen by John Twist it was based on W.R. Burnett's novel "High Sierra" and crisply photographed in glorious Black & White by the great Sid Hickok.Outlaw Wes McQueen (Joel McCrea) is broken out of prison by an old accomplice and mentor (Basil Ruysdael) to plan and execute one last job - the robbery of $100,000 from the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train. But Reno Blake and Duke Harris (John Archer/James Mitchel) the two others he has to work with are a couple of mistrustful and devious characters who resent McQueen arriving at the hideout and starting to give orders. Along with the two - for some female company - is an attractive half-breed dance hall girl Calorado Carson (Virginia Mayo) who immediately takes a fancy to McQueen because he treats her with some respect. Eventually thwarting a double cross by Reno and Duke during the actual robbery on the speeding train McQueen and Colorado escape with the money on horseback hotly pursued by the US Marshal (Morris Ankrum) and his posse. The picture ends tragically with a wounded McQueen being boldly defended by Colorado in a fierce gun battle as she tries in vain, with two six guns, to stop the advancing posse. Together, hand in hand, Wes and Colorado perish.The acting is generally good from all concerned. In a rare instance of playing an outlaw McCrea gives his usual laconic and appealing performance. But better is Virginia Mayo who is very striking as the hard bitten half-breed who falls in love with the gentle fugitive. And not forgetting the powerful image she created for the blistering finale. Standing daringly and with trenchant resolve and determination she blasts away with two six guns in defense of her wounded man before being brought down in a hail of gunfire. It is a great cinematic moment!Besides the marvellous monochrome cinematography of Sid Hickock, filmed in and around Gallup New Mexico, the picture is also buoyed by a terrific score by the ever underrated David Buttolph featuring a sweeping and arching main theme and some great action music especially for the train chase sequence.A good western "Colorado Territory" was never available on DVD before but now thanks to the Warner Archives label it has just been released in a clean and sharp transfer.

Scenic remake of gangster classic High Sierra. This time, it's cowboy Joel McCrea hooking up with no-account henchmen to rob a train carrying valuables. Along the way, he meets up with attractive good girl Dorothy Malone who stands for family and a stable farm life, but will that be enough to reform his outlaw side. Then too, add good-bad girl Virginia Mayo, the gang's moll, who's as morally unstable as McCrea and we've got another interesting conflict. We want McCrea to reform since he acts honorably even when his henchmen don't. Then too, no one was better at conveying quiet dignity and manliness than actor McCrea. As a Western hero, he was a natural. So, in effect, he's playing subtly against type.The massive rock monoliths of Arizona furnish a riveting backdrop and are nicely filmed, even in b&w. They also work well for the final scene, which is rather eerie given the distances involved. Comparisons with the original are inevitable, and while this cowboy version doesn't manage the tragic poignancy of the original (mainly because Mayo lacks Lupino's soulful skills), it's still a good story, with well-staged action and lots to look at. And for a Western, that's a hard combination to beat.

Raoul Walsh does his usual yeoman-like job of directing this mediocre Western with Joel McRae as an outlaw trying to make one last big haul by robbing a train, Dorothy Malone as the young woman he thinks he loves, and Virginia Mayo as the girl who is, as he finally realizes, made for him.Walsh also directed the original story, "High Sierra", with Humphrey Bogart, Joan Leslie, and Ida Lupino in the same roles. "Colorado Territory" absconds with the story but leaves John Huston's felicitous script behind as scraps.Walsh has never directed a dull film, and this isn't dull. What it is, is simple minded. All of the subtlety and ambiguity that made the original so fine, so artful, is discarded and instead the characters and their motives are simplified to the extent that any particularly aware third-grader can grasp them.What I mean is -- how should I put this? Maybe I can make the point by giving an example. In "High Sierra", Bogart meets a simple, kind old man with a crippled grand-daughter who needs an operation. That's the teen-aged Joan Leslie we're talking about, and, man, she looks good, though rendered sullen by her disability. Bogart comes into some loot and gives much of it to Joan Leslie's family so that she can have her operation. Meanwhile, he falls in with Ida Lupino, a whore who has been kicked around, loves Bogart, and will do anything for him. Before adopting Lupino, Bogart tells her that there's no place in his life for her. (He's thinking of settling down with Joan Leslie once she's fixed up.) Leslie's operation is a success and from her recovery bed she showers Bogart with gratitude -- but not love, as she explains to Grampa. On his next visit, Bogart finds her drinking and jitterbugging frenetically with a boyfriend. Leslie is still grateful to Bogart but she rejects his possessiveness, and he leaves her forever with Ida Lupino. Huston and Walsh fill these scenes with love, ambiguity, a frantic hope and a hopeless remorse.In the remake, the Joan Leslie figure, Dorothy Malone, has nothing wrong with her except that she is greedy and treacherous. Although McRae gives the family enough money to start their farm, Malone tries to alert the sheriff to MacRae's presence in order to collect the twenty-thousand-dollar reward. The Ida Lupino character, Virginia Mayo, actually has to have a physical fight with Malone to keep her from rushing out the door. There is no ambiguity, no sense of real life. Malone is not a nice, if slightly empty-headed girl, who wants to just enjoy her new freedom. She's a bad girl."Colorado Territory" is miscast, as well. Joel McRae is a good light comedian or light action star -- a nice guy. He's not the tough ex-con that Bogart was. And Virginia Mayo is supposed to be part Pueblo Indian, though she looks about as Indian as Jean Harlow, the heavy makeup notwithstanding. One of the most touching (because grounded) elements of the original is that Bogart had to give up the vivacious young Joan Leslie for the older, husky, used, and rather plain Ida Lupino. In the remake, the succulent Virginia Mayo of 1949 could give Dorothy Malone a run for her money any day. It's like a high-schooler having to give up his romance with the head of the girl's cheer-leading squad for the love of the Prom Queen. There's not much of a sense of loss.I've picked out just one set of relationships to compare, but any viewer could easily spot a dozen more in which the original is superior to the remake. (Humphrey Bogart, describing what a Tommy gun sounds like, taps his finger three times on the desk and says, "Tap tap tap. That's all." Nothing like that here.) Nice location shooting, but if you want to see a movie made for adult sensibilities, rent the original. This remake is pretty watered down.