After once again finding himself in trouble with his superiors after getting into yet another barroom brawl, sergeant Jefferson Harder (John Payne) is offered a chance to prove himself as some officials in Laramie have requested the army's support. Jefferson is to become a special marshal in Laramie in order to not only clean up the town but also get to the bottom of who has been preventing the railroad from being completed by sabotaging it. The trouble is that everyone in town knows that it is Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea), the town's saloon owner and his goons who are behind it, but Jefferson and Jim grew up together.
Rodney Playfair (Richard Hearne) has found himself coerced into masquerading as a butler called Chapman for a friend as he has a gambling debt which his friend hass agreed to pay off if he does this one favour for him. What Rodney d ...
Rails into Laramie (1954) - (John Payne) US insert F, EX $125 *Size: 14" x 28" Price: $125Condition: Excellent (as pictured, minor edge damage)Watch on YouTubeThis is a 14" x 36" US insert poster for the 1954 Jesse Hibbsfilm Rails into Laramie based on a story by D. D. Beauchamp andJoseph Hoffman and starring John Payne as Jefferson Hareder. Plotsummary: Sergeant Jefferson Harder receives an unexpected promotion tocaptain and is sent to Laramie by his commanding officer General Augur[Stephen Chase] to find out out why the railroad construction hasstopped, delaying completion of the transcontinental railroad. Harderfinds a town so corrupted by gambling and drinking that the populationis too corrupt and undisciplined to build the railroad; he proceeds toshut down the bars and fire the ineffective managers and workers.This leads to an armed and legal clash with Jim Shanessy [Dan Duryea],the local saloon owner and kingpin who is behind all the corruption.The first all-women jury in the US convened in Laramie with Shanessy'sbusiness partner Lou Carter [Mari Blanchard] serving as forewoman tobring justice for the murder of Marshal Orrie Summers [JamesGriffith], done on Shanessy's orders by Con Winton [Lee Van Cleef].This item is available for immediate shipment. It is variously known to the public as a Rails into Laramie poster, a Rails into Laramie film poster and a Rails into Laramie movie poster.Put It in the Cart Add to, See CartSee Cart NowUse this mail form to buy this movie poster or comment on the Movie Poster Page:
Troubleshooter Jefferson Harder (John Payne) is sent to Laramie by the Army to investigate the sabotage that is preventing the railroad from finishing it's line connecting the East and West. Upon arrival Payne quickly finds out the worst kept secret in town, that old buddy and current town saloon owner Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea) is behind the chicanery, though nobody is ever able to prove Shanessy and his henchmen (Myron Healey and Lee Van Cleef) are involved. The town leaders, while happy about support from the Army, are disappointed from the start that they have only sent one man to do the job and grow increasingly critical of the heavy-handed tactics employed by Payne to clean up the town.
Rails Into Laramie packs a lot of action into it's 80 minute run time. Between busting bad guys heads Payne barely has time to strike up a romantic relationship with Dance Hall owner and partner of Jim Shanessy, Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard). Very little melodrama to be found in this one as Payne spends most of his time eradicating the town's scofflaws.
This movie follows the Universal International Pictures formula of using off the A-list leading actors with familiar casts, packaged in a medium budget production. A formula that worked very well for them and it works here too. John Payne may be the best leading actor of the post World War II era that few people remember today. A versatile actor Payne looked equally a home whether in the saddle, a crime drama or a comedy. Here he carries the day in this action saddle flick.
Good drive-in grade Western flick.
Army sergeant John Payne is ordered to clear up the situation in Laramie single-handedly. He finds his childhood buddy Dan Duryea running a saloon and paying off everyone in sight to keep the work moving as slow as possible; the longer it takes, the more of the rail workers' pay he can pocket. Payne gets himself appointed marshal and jails all the baddies.... but their friends on the juries keep setting them free.
It's another of the 'Shaky A' westerns from Universal in this period, directed by the reliable Jesse Hibbs. Like most of the westerns from Universal in this period, it's in Technicolor, has a couple of minor stars, a few key character actors like Barton Maclane and Lee van Cleef and a spectacular finale of a fight in a train that's about to crash into a passenger train. The result is good, if standard fun.
It's produced by Ted Richmond. He began producing B movies for Columbia in 1940. When Cohn shut down his series, he switched to Universal, where he worked on all sorts of programmers. He produced 56 movies by 1957, and then slowed down. Over the next 22 years, he produced 10 movies, including PAPILLON. He died in 2013 at the age of 103.
A Wyoming man whose lawsuit-in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. for "just compensation" for use of his private property as a federal trail-was dismissed in November 2011, has won a victory when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reinstated his lawsuit, Brandt v. United States, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 5948 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 26, 2013) [enhanced version available to lexis.com subscribers]. Marvin M. Brandt of Fox Park, who claims title to a railroad right-of-way and a road that accesses his property, asserts that, but for a federal rails-to-trails law, an easement owned by a railroad would have reverted to him. Mr. Brandt argues the land claimed by the United States was used as a railroad right-of-way from 1904 until 1995, when the railroad abandoned it; all tracks and ties were removed by 2000. The land subject to a railroad right-of-way was conveyed to Mr. Brandt in 1976; the United States retained no interest in it. After a Wyoming federal district court ruled against Mr. Brandt, he filed his federal claims court suit. His appeal of the Wyoming district court's ruling is pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado.
The land along the railroad right-of-way was reserved from the public domain by presidential proclamation and became part of the Medicine Bow National Forest. Thus, private land areas in Albany, Fox Park, and Mountain Home along the right-of-way were acquired after creation of the railroad and are subject to it. At Albany, private lots were platted over the right-of-way and the land conveyed subject to the railroad. Abandonment of the railroad right-of-way thus creates a title conflict between these ownerships and the effects of the 1988 Rails-to-Trails Act. Mr. Brandt owns 83 acres patented to him in February 1976, as part of an exchange with the Forest Service.
In April 2005, the Forest Service issued a notice of its plans to convert the railway into a public trail. In July 2006, the United States sued Mr. Brandt and others. The Wyoming federal district court ruled April 2008.
The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy says some well-known trails on federally granted rights of way include the George S. Mickelson Trail in South Dakota, the Foothills Trail and the John Wayne Pioneer trails in Washington state and the Rio Grande Trail in Colorado.
The foundation of the causes of action alleged is that plaintiff was an iceman employed to, among other things, descend into bunkers on refrigerator cars to regulate burning heaters which generate carbon-monoxide gas. Plaintiff was 53 years of age at the time. He climbed upon the cars by means of a ladder and opened the necessary plug or hatch. He then proceeded to two other cars and opened one plug on each. In performing this work he walked along the top of the cars and did not dismount. The opening of the plugs was to let the carbon-monoxide gas out, and to enter the bunkers to get at the heater. Returning to the first car, after about four minutes taken up in opening plugs and passing from one car to the other, he descended by means of a ladder and shut off the burning heater of the first car. He climbed out of the bunker, closed the plug and proceeded on to the next car. Here he repeated the same performance; and then proceeded to the third car which he estimated had by this time been open at its plug for some ten to twelve minutes. He repeated the same performance here; but when he climbed out in the fresh air and closed the plug he recalls nothing further until he regained consciousness lying on the ground near the car from which he had apparently fallen. This third car was No. FDEX9084. Plaintiff knew that the safe way to clear these bunkers of gas was to open the plugs at both ends. He did not do this in this *110 instance, as he claimed he was instructed by his foreman that this train was in a hurry. Furthermore, on two of the cars one each of the two plugs was sealed, and he was not permitted to break seals upon his own initiative. He could not say, however, that the car from which he apparently fell had any plug sealed.
In the case of Gaulden v. Southern Pacific Co., D.C., 78 F. Supp. 651, 657 which was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, 174 F.2d 1022, the *114 present express company defendant, and its stockholder, the Southern Pacific Co., were involved in a case in many ways like this one. There an iceman was injured too, but he was engaged in work in the icing yard and plant owned by the express company. He was engaged in unloading ice from the refrigerating car owned by the express company. While he was engaged in moving an empty car from a loading platform, he was struck by a loaded car being drawn up to the loading platform by a cable and winch. In one sense that case is stronger in plaintiff's favor than this, as the court held that the movement of cars was the duty of the railroad, and plaintiff was engaged in moving an empty car into a loading position. The court held, however, that plaintiff's actions were not as a special employee of the railroad company. Upon that point the court had this to say: "The contention, that plaintiff's activities at the time of the accident were in connection with a railroad movement, in unsubstantial. It is true at the time one car was being manually pushed away from the loading platform, while another was being driven up by a cable and winch. A railroad movement connotes something more than the mere movement of a car over a rail. Certainly this it not enough to constitute common carriage by rail."
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