The Civil War is just about to start. In Bleeding Kansas, the government is trying to get the Kansas Pacific Railroad built in order to link its western forts with the east. The Confederate sympathizers are less than eager to see this accomplished. The US Army decides to send out one engineer in civilian clothes to see if he can straighten things out a bit. That would be Sterling Hayden, who looks so big compared to everyone else in the movie that it's possible to imagine him filling a box car all by himself.In charge of the now-stuck railroad in Kansas is beefy, blustering, Barton MacLane, who resents becoming subordinate to Hayden. MacLane's theatrical bellowing had a place in the rough action movies of ten years earlier. But here, the writers have burdened him with a daughter he loves. She can't act but he loves her anyway. Once in a while he chucks her under the chin and tries to smile at her, but one can almost hear the creaking of long-unused facial muscles.The story is rambunctious, headlong. Hayden is determined to get that railroad built, although the suave villain, Reed Hadley of the sonorous baritone, does everything possible to stop him, including requisitioning some artillery from the nascent Confederate Army.But if it's never boring, it's never original either. All the men dress alike: dark cowboy hats, checkered shirts, unbuttoned vests, black boots, and low-slung holsters. I don't know why all the men in these routine Westerns have to wear vests but they do. I counted 246 cowboys and 213 of them were wearing unbuttoned vests. That's 86.58536 percent of the men, all wearing unbuttoned vests. They wear neckerchiefs too, and gloves.Towards the end there is a terrific fist fight between hero Hayden and villain Hadley, and each fist lands smack on each jaw with a loud thud.Well, does the railroad finally get built, you ask? And well you might. No. The railroad does not get built. As a result, the western forts are severed from the battles in the east, the Confederate States of America win the war, and we are all reduced to eating hoppin' john and hush puppies.

Kansas Pacific isn't a particularly great film, but it's far from the bottom of the barrel if you ask me. The main thing it's got going for it is obvious – leading man Sterling Hayden, slumming it at Allied Artists but putting his best effort into a pretty standard character. And although the film's plot twists will be easily seen a mile away, the script manages to make the scenario come alive with some crisp dialogue and assorted moments of insight.Hayden plays John Nelson, a U.S. Army Captain who is sent to Kansas as an undercover agent, posing as an engineer with the railroad company on the project to build a railroad connecting Kansas to the West Coast. As the prologue explains, the completion of the railroad is crucial to the North's hopes in the impending Civil War (the film is set in 1860, just before the outbreak of hostilities). The South, realizing this, sends an intelligent and cultured leader, Bill Quantrill (Reed Hadley) to co-ordinate attacks with an eye to delaying the railroad's completion. At first the railroad man on the job, Cal Bruce (Barton MacLane) and his lovely daughter Barbara (Eve Miller) resist his charms and his efforts, but they soon learn of his patriotic mission and embrace the cause.This is an extremely low budget film – so cheap that you can easily spot anachronisms like tire tread on the roads. In the scene where Captain Nelson chases the two men into the bar, he tries to tie his horse onto the post but the rope slips off and he just walks away. I guess they figured audiences wouldn't notice this stuff, or it was too late to fix. Anyway, the cheap sets do give the film a somewhat unpleasant look with the interior scenes – I recognized the Washington DC set as the same one used in some of Roger Corman's films from later in the 50s, and possibly in some of the Schneer/Harryhausen productions – but this is more than made up for by some lovely exterior photography of the Western setting.As said above the plot is somewhat standard as is the approach to the romance between the Captain and the daughter, but everything is done just well enough so that Western fans won't mind. The film gives us a somewhat interesting look at the period just before the Civil War, where as the prologue reminds us there was massive bloodshed which was unjustified because there had been no formal declaration of war (does this imply that the declaration of war made mass bloodshed somehow just?). When Captain Nelson arrives in town almost the first thing he does is involve himself in a fight between strangers. It turns out that he had come to the rescue of his nemesis, Bill Quantrill, because the Southerner was being jumped by 3 men with Northern sympathies. This underlies the Captain's essential morality – he is supporting the North but he would not do anything dishonorable to further his cause. At this point before the War at least, it's still possible to place morality or justice above victory. Given the fact that Hadley's Quantrill is well-spoken and seems more reserved than his henchmen (one of whom is portrayed by Clayton Moore), this initial scene between the two men promises the possibility of two opposing but equally honorable opponents, but the film doesn't really follow this interesting course, instead eventually devolving into a fairly standard good guys/bad guys conflict.Still, for Western fans this one will be reasonably worthwhile for Hayden's stout performance and some decent action scenes – the attack on the train by cannons is particularly and surprisingly effective given how cheap the film is on the whole.

I was going to write a scathing report of all the anachronisms in this movie, from the dynamite to the completed U.S. Capitol Dome to the knuckle couplers and air brakes on the railroad equipment (if they look familiar, it's because the engine and the baggage/coach combination were the stars of "Petticoat Junction") to Eve Miller's Capri slacks and Maidenform bra.But if I did I'd miss the point.This movie isn't about what happened in Kansas in the late 1850's, it's another trip into the Hollywood Old West. It's the kind of movie you'd watch on a Saturday afternoon to forget that C- Miss Kursinsky gave you in Algebra.Don't worry about the details. Just sit and relax, grab some popcorn and Juju Fruits and enjoy the ride. Which, at the end of the day, isn't all that bad.

"Kansas Pacific" is a dramatization of one of the types of confrontations that took place in the West during the Civil War. In an area where the residents had divided loyalties, a group of Southern sympathizers wants to prevent the completion of a railroad being built by the Union, so the Union Army sends in experts and eventually backs them up with strength. It's a decent Western, and it is also interesting as a fictional depiction of a little-known aspect of the Civil War era.The story is straightforward, and the script and acting are fairly routine, though there are some familiar faces in the cast such as Sterling Hayden, Barton MacLane, and Clayton Moore.The action sequences, especially towards the end, are done well and are the main reason to watch the movie. The period setting is convincing, the special effects during the battles are realistic and exciting, and there is also a decent musical score.There should be plenty in "Kansas Pacific" for any Western fan to enjoy it, and you might also give it a try if you enjoy historical-based fiction.