Rock Island Trail (1950)

Forrest Tucker is Reed Loomis, who believes the railroad will transform transportation as the nation pushes West. Bruce Cabot is Kirby Morrow, a shipping tycoon eager to see the railroad flop.

Their rivalry grows more intense when Loomis steals the heart of Morrow’s fiance, the lovely and rich Constance Strong (Adele Mara).

With Loomis’s bravado and Constance’s money, they build tracks to the West.

When they reach the Mississippi, they combine resources to build a bridge across it, too.

But Morrow doesn’t give up easy. At one point, he destroys the bridge by floating a boat filled with explosives into it.

Loomis perseveres, but only with the assistance of a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, and an Indian princess named Aletta (Adrian Booth), who also falls for him.

Morrow follows him West, throwing up obstacles and buying up railroad stock with hopes of one day taking over.

Forrest Tucker as Reed Loomis, determined to complete a railroad in the face of overwhelming odds in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Adele Mara as Constance Strong, agreeing to help Loomis achieve his dream of building a railroad bridge across the Mississippi River in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Review:

More original than many of the building-of-the-railroad Westerns released in the 1950s, largely due to the roles of the two female leads.

Constance Strong is a spirited young woman, who ditches her stage tickets for railroad tickets just because Morrow, her fiance at the time, tells her not to. She winds up finding love in the process, though getting Reed Loomis to the alter takes quite a long time.

Aleeta is the daughter of an Indian chief who learned how to be a lady — and smoke cigarettes — in Paris. She’s quite forward in her advances toward Loomis, until she learns he’s already engaged to Constance.

Toss in a duel with mops rather than guns, the crashing of a burning gambling boat into a bridge and a well-staged — if somewhat far-fetched — finale, and you’re in for an unusual, though often hokey 90 minutes, with Tucker in the lead.

Chill Wills plays his right-hand man, who has a fondness toward whiskey and an aversion to a wife he left behind.

Adrian Booth (aka Lorna Gray) as Aleeta, the European educated Indian princess who falls for Loomis in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Bruce Cabot as Kirby Morrow, the riverboat tycoon who loses his girl to Loomis in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Directed by:
Joseph Kane

Cast:
Forrest Tucker … Reed Loomis
Adele Mara … Constance Strong
Adrian Booth … Aleeta
Bruce Cabot … Kirby Morrow
Chill Wills … Hogger McCoy
Barbra Fuller … Annabelle Marsh
Grant Withers … David Strong
Jeff Corey … Abe Lincoln
Roy Barcroft … Barnes
Pierre Watkin … Major
Valentine Perkins … Annette
Jimmy Hunt … Stinky Tanner
Nobel Johnson … Bent Creek
John Holland … Maj. Porter
Kate Drain Lawson … Mrs. McCoy
Emory Parnell … Sen. Wells
Billy Wilkerson … Chief Lakin

Runtime: 90 min.

Chill Wills as Hogger McCoy, Loomis’s engineer, eager to watch his boss ‘duel’ Kirby Morrow in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Grant Withers as David Strong, Constance’s father, worried Loomis’s plan will lead to financial ruin in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Memorable lines:

Stage driver, stopping so his passengers can view a train engine: “Five minutes to rest your eyes on a device that will prove a fool and his money are soon parted. Don’t get too close. Those dang things blow up right frequent like.”

Annabelle Marsh, after Reed Loomis gives Constance Strong a boost into a stagecoach: “You’ve been picked up by a strange man.”
Constance Strong: “Yes. And it was not at all unpleasant.”
Annabelle: “Constance!”

Hogger McCoy, pushing for immediate payment of a bribe to sabotage a train: “I don’t operate with that tomorrow money at all. It ain’t spendable.”

Ralph Moody as Chief Keokuk, out for revenge against a killer in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Valentine Perkins as Annette, Aleeta’s maid, feeling safer in the custody of an Army officer in Rock Island Trail (1950)

David Strong, Constance’s father: “Kirby (Morrow) has such a wealth of manners and poverty of ethics.”

David Strong: “Why don’t you two get married and stop dripping honey all over my house. It’s bag for the rugs.”

Aleeta: “If any more attempts are made on Mr. Loomis’s life, I shall have to have you killed in a long, painful manner. You would much rather your throat was cut.”

Barbra Fuller as Annabelle Marsh and Adele Mara as Constance Strong, lured into an argument by Loomis in Rock Island Trail (1950)

Forrest Tucker as Reed Loomis and Chill Wills as Hogger McCoy, ready to face down trouble makers in Rock Island Trail (1950)