Santa Fe (1951) Reviews

• Between the Santa Fe and his brothers, he was a divided man.

  tmwest2004-04-16

  I have a special liking for this film because I used to admire the Santa Fe beautiful passenger trains in the fifties and I made a fantastic trip at that time on the Santa Fe from New Mexico to Chicago. This is a colorful, entertaining film which tells the story of Randolph Scott and his brothers who were confederates and after the war is finished, get in a brawl with some nasty northern soldiers. To get away from a posse they jump into a train of the Santa Fe and Scott starts working in the building of the railroad. As his brothers become outlaws, he gets uncomfortable in his position at the railroad. Scott changes his westerns outfits quite often, I suppose because at that time the movie stills were published in a lot of magazines. A great moment is when an Indian chief complains that the train is making too much noise, so Scott allows him to drive the locomotive, to feel that he is in control. From "The Iron Horse" on, the building of the railroads was always a great theme for westerns and Santa Fe tell its story with plenty of good action scenes.

• The Ties That Bind

  bkoganbing2005-12-05

  The Brothers Canfield, Randolph Scott, Peter Thompson, Jerome Courtland, and John Archer; are all Confederate veterans who get into a brawl with some Union soldiers who were drunk and started it. One of the Union men is killed. The Canfields flee via the Santa Fe railroad going west. Randolph Scott stays to work for the railroad, the other brothers decide to become outlaws for real. For Randolph Scott, Santa Fe is an interesting blend of two of his previous pre-World War II films The Texans and Western Union. In both he's involved in a great enterprise, a cattle drive in The Texans and building the telegraph in Western Union. In The Texans he's a returning Confederate veteran and in Western Union his conflict is with his brother. Santa Fe is a good action packed western, plenty of gun-play by a cast of veterans of many a western. Scott is his usual tight-lipped self. The part is a bit offbeat for him. Randolph Scott is usually a driven man with a mission and sometimes can be ruthless. His Britt Canfield here is a man of honor and a straight arrow, the kind of part Joel McCrea would normally be cast in. But Scott does well with the role. Olin Howland and Billy House provide some good comic relief as an engineer and his fireman. Western fans will not be disappointed.

• Great Randolph Scott Classic

  whpratt12007-04-08

  Enjoyed this 1951 story about the expanding of the Santa Fe Railroad through Kansas and how some Southern soldiers after the war headed North to find jobs and their leader was Randolph Scott, (Britt Canfield) and his three brothers. There plan was to make enough money in the North and head back to Virginia, however, there was still great hatred towards the Northerners for burning their property and also claiming their homestead lands. As the Santa Fe railroad is trying to lay their track across the land there is a bunch of crooks looking for their pay checks on pay day and they set up a tent with gambling, booze and hot bar maids to grab every nickle and dime and cause great delays in the building of the railroad. Janis Carter, (Judith Chandler) is a pretty platinum blonde who captures the eye of Britt Canfield, but she hates him for killing her brother in the Civil War. Great film with steam engines burning up the tracks and even an Indian takes complete control of the engine. Enjoy a great 1951 Classis Western from the past.

• Pretty good...

  MartinHafer2010-03-19

  The time period for this film is actually pretty common for a Randolph Scott western--and about the fourth or fifth one set just after the Civil War. Like most of the films, Randolph fought for the South and now that the war is over, he has a choice to either accept the outcome or be a whiny jerk about it. Well, he's a smart guy and soon gets a job working for the Santa Fe railroad, but his three brothers who served with him aren't so bright--they hate the North so much that they do what they can to wreck things--even though there is no reasonable reason for this. So, much of the film pits Scott against his own kin (and vice-versa) as he tries hard to get the railroad completed and they work to undo it as much as possible--working for a traveling saloon whose task, it seems, is to both make money off the workers AND get them distracted from their job. In addition to his brothers, Scott deals with a wide variety of things that might impede the progress of the railroad--rival companies, local Indian tribes and the like. This makes Scott's job in the film as a sort of trouble-shooter. How true all these problems were in the construction of the rails is beyond me and I assume that the writers took a few liberties...just a few! Overall, the film is pretty good. While it isn't among Scott's best films (they were made later in the decade and the early 60s), this is a good film from this time period.

• Captain Canfield is a good man in a fight, I ought to know.

  Spikeopath2011-06-15

  Santa Fe is directed by Irving Pichel and adapted to screenplay by Kenneth Gamet from the James Marshall novel and a story by Louis Stevens. It stars Randolph Scott, Janis Carter, Peter M. Thompson, Jerome Courtland and John Archer. A Technicolor production, it's photographed by Charles Lawton Jr. Story is set following the American Civil war and finds Scott as Britt Canfield, one of four ex-Confederate brothers heading West for a new life. While Britt finds honest employment on the Santa Fe railroad, his brothers veer towards the other side of the law. A routine Western boosted by some quality set pieces and a well crafted script. Watchable from the off, film follows a true course whilst launching off narratively from the bitterness still felt by those who were on opposite sides of the war. It pitches Scott front and centre as the stoic character fending off all sorts of challenges, challenges that come courtesy of Indians, rival companies and his own kin! The acting around Scott is pretty average, tho the comic relief from Billy House & Olin Howland is most appealing, while it would have been nice to have some more imposing scenery filling out the screen. All told it's a safe recommendation to Western fans, even if ultimately it's not a genre film to revisit often. 6/10