When "Carson City" begins, a stagecoach is being robbed. However, oddly, these bandits have class and treat their 'guests' to a nice picnic lunch complete with champagne! Not surprisingly, they're dubbed the Champagne Bandits and the mine owner whose gold was stolen is furious. He proposes to build a railroad and avoid all this banditry. To help him get the job done, he brings in an engineer/troubleshooter, Jeff Kincaid (Randolph Scott). However, the new railroad is opposed by two forces--the local newspaper that's afraid it will usher in thugs and the guy who is secretly behind all the robberies. Can Jeff manage to get the job done-- especially when the baddies seem willing to do ANYTHING to stop them?This is generally a well made and enjoyable film--which isn't surprising since Scott stars in it. He seemed to always make even the most ordinary material better and this movie is no exception. The complaints I have are relatively minor (such as how dumb Zeke is when he learns who's behind the robberies--way to do Zeke!) and the film is solid and entertaining.By the way, the pretty lady starring in the film is NOT Virginia Mayo but a near lookalike, Lucille Norman.

Plenty of straightforward action here, with Randolph Scott as a fustian engineer hired to build a railroad from Carson City to Reno and San Francisco. He's opposed by most of the town who have heretofore depended on the stagecoach and despise ruffians. He's also opposed by his brother because the girl in town falls for Scott. The chief heavy is Raymond Massey, leader of the gang called "the champagne bandits" who sabotage the railroad and kill some of the construction workers because it's always been easier to hold up horse-drawn wagons instead of trains. Bang bang. Scott wins the conflict and the girl.Not an ounce of originality is to be found in the film, which doesn't detract from the appeal of its ritualistic rigor. Men "back up" their insults. They "call each other out." A fist fight wrecks a saloon but nobody's nose. Carson City's leaders are dressed in stovepipe hats and fancy vests. The proletariat are dressed in plaid shirts and dusty ducks. Only Scott stands out in a color-coordinated outfit of dark blue with a decorative yellow kerchief around his neck, properly accessorized. Everybody except the wimps carries a gun on his hip wherever he goes.You must admire Randolph Scott. Here he is, fiftyish, fit and handsome and steely eyed. A man of honor. He strides when he walks. And he had a good career, mostly limited to making these mostly routine Westerns during the latter part of his career. "Routine" -- with some exceptions. Directed by Bud Boettiger or Sam Pekinpah he made something out of the otherwise routine. He acted until his line was about to run out, then retired, a very wealthy man, and devoted himself to golf until he died, with never a backward look towards Hollywood.Movies like this gave a lot of work to stunt men too, and they're quite a group. Not necessarily handsome, not necessarily big or muscular, they had solidarity and the courage to do a dangerous job. And although they considered themselves an elite group in the industry, they weren't afraid to hang around with the extras or crew of the lower orders. Good-natured and generous people. Some, a very few, went on to occasional supporting roles, like Dar Robinson and Yakima Canutt.The movie's an okay way to while away an hour and a half, unpretentious and undemanding, kind of like having your frontal lobes massaged.

Carson City has the distinction of two real western characters hiring the fictional character played by Randolph Scott to build a railroad from Virginia City to Carson City. William Sharon(Larry Keating) is getting very tired of having his gold shipments held up by a gang of bandits who also cater when they do a holdup. Sharon approaches banker Charles Crocker(Thurston Hall)who also is a big wheel in the Central Pacific railroad to build a spur line so he can ship by railroad.Of course the railroad has its opponents in Carson City and quite subtly mine owner Raymond Massey is heading the opposition. Because Massey doesn't have a working mine, he does it the easy way, he robs the gold from the other guys and then ships it as his own.Massey's the brains behind those bandit/caterers. His bandits holdup the stagecoach have the passengers removed and then show them to a picnic lunch topped off by a magnum of champagne. The other passengers don't care when the rich Larry Keating gets robbed and aren't too helpful to the law. It's unique in westerns I have to say, but it's also kind of silly, the sort of stuff you might see in a western from Roy Rogers or Gene Autry, but not Randolph Scott.Starting out with such a silly premise it was hard for me to get really into Carson City, even after it turned deadly serious with Massey trying to stop the railroad in any way he can. Randolph Scott had a unique leading lady here, radio singer Lucille Norman who sings not a note. That's a pity because the woman had a wonderful soprano. I have an album she did with Gordon MacRae of the score from The Desert Song. Lucille is the daughter of Carson City Clarion editor Don Beddoe who gets murdered by Massey when his suspicions are aroused. Lucille is also got Scott's half brother Richard Webb, TV and radio's Captain Midnight as a rival suitor and opponent of the railroad. Randy's got all kinds of personal problems for taking on this job.Carson City is also badly edited. There were a few things that were left in the air that I'm sure wound up on the cutting room floor.Randolph Scott's legion of fans will like Carson City, but it's far from his best work.

"Carson City" is not your standard Western fare. Randolph Scott portrays engineer Jeff Kincaid, back in Nevada from a job in Panama and looking more or less for some action. When he learns of a businessman's plans to build a railroad leg through mountainous territory between Virginia City and Carson City, he fairly jumps at the opportunity to ramrod the project.There are opposing forces to the railroad in town, not the least of which is Carson City Clarion owner and publisher Zeke Mitchell (Don Beddoe). When Mitchell winds up murdered, the suspicion falls on Kincaid and his crew. Adding to the dramatic tension is Kincaid's relationship with his half brother Alan (Richard Webb), whose fiancé Susan (Lucille Norman) is Mitchell's daughter. She was only sixteen years old when she last saw Jeff Kincaid, and now that he's back in town, an early crush is about to develop into a wedge between the two brothers.The part of the crooked businessman is handled by Raymond Massey as Big Jack Davis, gang leader of the "Champagne Bandits", whose opposition to the railroad lasts long enough to plan a last big score of gold bullion on the train's maiden run between the two Nevada cities. By this time, Kincaid and his men have been rescued from a landslide that trapped them in tunnel one of their railroad project, with Kincaid beginning to uncover Davis' hand in the plot to rob the train. It's all wrapped up pretty neatly by film's end, with Randolph Scott even getting the girl, more of a feel good ending as there was really no romantic relationship to speak of in the film.For trivia buffs, this was the first Warner Brothers film to be produced in the Warner Color format. The rendition was good in the print I viewed, and shows off nicely Randolph Scott's rather frequent change of outfits which is characteristic for his films, highlighted by the signature all black outfit in the middle of the story.