Product Description

A determined railroad builder encounters construction problems while building a railroad in South America.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36095 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2007-05-22
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 128 minutes

Features

• An action-packed romantic movie about an engineer's attempt to build a railroad tunnel in the Andes Mountains. Johnny Munroe is a tough builder who, along with partner Pop Mathews, has been hired by tycoon Frederick Alexander to pull off the difficult task. Although Johnny and Pop think that it would be far easier to lay the train tracks on a bridge spanning a river, Frederick insists on a

Customer Reviews

Tycoon
Tycoon
The Movie
Here we have the Duke as a railroad man blasting tunnels thru a mountain. He falls for a weird rich mans daughter. Then all the drama begins. It takes a long time to get to it too. It is slow paced not edited well and not one of the dukes best films. That's not to say its bad it just doesn't move along and doesn't pull you into the story

The Video
The video is bright lots of color in full frame. It has some damage here and there but all in all a watch able print.

The Audio
Mono 1.0 no update which is a shame with all the dynamite it been nice to have a 5.1 mix too rattle the windows.

The Extras
Hollywood Wonderland
Sixteen minutes of a musical about Hollywood made in 1947. I am not sure what this has to do with the movie but its here it's a Disney like parade of music and dance with some cameos interesting once but like most extras never watched twice.

Red Hot Rangers
A Tex Avery cartoon with two bears trying to put out a forrest fire. Most of us have seen this one before but due to the smoking in the first scene it is not shown on regular tv anymore.

Summary
As for my collection of duke movies it is a most. For the casual fan it's a rent if u can find it. For six bucks though it is priced right. Frankly the cartoons better than the movie on this one.

A Great Early John Wayne Movie!!
John Wayne stars as an engineer struggling to build a rairoad tunnel to reach the mines as his task becomes more complicated when he falls for the bosse's daughter.This is a great early John Wayne Movie!!

Neglected vintage action movie
The UK movie magazine Empire ran a feature a year or so back on "The most under-rated actors in movies ".Kevin Bacon "won" and John Wayne came second ,the article going on to point out that he was often dismissed as a "star" and a "presence"rather than an actor.It is a valid point and for my money one area where he especially excelled was in playing "driven" men -those keen to get things done at whatever price .He showed this talent in two undeniable classics -Red River and The Searchers .Tycoon is nowhere near to being a classic but it does enable the Duke to show this facet of his talent to good advantage

He plays an engineer,Johnny Munroe ,entrusted with the task of building a trans -Indian railroad and not unduly fussy about methods ,driving his work force long and hard .He does not let his obsession prevent him from amorous dalliance with Maura (Laraine Day )who just happens to be the daughter of his boss Frederick Alexander (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) who objects to Munroe over both the courtship of his daughter and the draconian methods Munroe applies .Conflict is inevitable and a bitter spirit enters his soul driving him to even further levels of obsession

Wayne is fine and there is solid back up from Hardwicke and Judith Anderson with a young Anthony Quinn as a devious baddie .Day is a little flat but the love scenes with Wayne she her raise her game -it was reputed they were an off screen item as well

The script by Borden Chase and John Twist might politely be described as funtional and it really needed a stronger director than studio hack Richard Wallace to drive the movie forward .The action is plentiful and well staged with an especially good storm scene and the Technicolor photography is splendid

A solid slice of vintage Hollywood hokum is the result of all this .It is enjoyable and entertaining but not quite top drawer Duke or top drawer movie making either