I ran across an old 1950 movie last night on YouTube "A Ticket To Tomahawk" about building a narrow gauge railroad through the Colorado mountains. Just happens to be the first movie Marilyn Monroe was in. She is uncredited and appears for only about five minutes. The movie is a bit campy but I thought someone on the forum may like to watch it. j
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If it runs, like on the CBS Sunday night movie, l would definitely watch it, for the favored subject matter...not for one of many, although hopefully more lucky, starlets of the day.
JohnActon: Thanks so much for the post! My wife and I just watched this fun movie! Yes, Marilyn is in it as well as an interesting old train and actors. Walter Brennan is always fun and the bad guys got it in the end!
Any movie with an interesting story, at least one pretty girl and a happy ending has a very good chance of being a winner. This one even has a train!
Guess there is no aft draft in this flick!
If memory serves me correctly wasn't this the movie where in one scene they needed to move a locomotive across some terrain sans tracks? If it was then I recall reading they tried to used a real engine for the move and discovered they couldn't do it so they built a wooden replica as a stand in for the real thing.
The real star of the movie (the #20 locomotive) can still be seen at the Colorado Railroad Museum.
I remember seeing it in the theatre with my dad at about age eight. Of course, it was several years later when I learned who Marilyn Monroe was.
I remember them having to dismantle the engine and even at age eight found that hard to believe they could actually do that! More fantasy than usual, even for Hollywood!
@Tinplate Art posted:I remember them having to dismantle the engine and even at age eight found that hard to believe they could actually do that! More fantasy than usual, even for Hollywood!
Everything was bolted gas or electric welding had not been invented. So if you had wrenches you could unbolt most of it. However that is not the part which I find hard to believe. It seemed to be rolling as the mules were towing it. If you actually tried to tow a locomotive in dirt or sand the weight on the small contact patch of the locomotive wheels would cause the loco to sink into the dirt up to the frame. If you look closly at the wheels as it is being towed the ground under them is perfectly flat. Looks to me they covered track with sand and raked it flat. I try not to dissect movies as I watch them it is hard not to find some imperfection in any movie. j
Let us agree the entire premise was highly improbable and overall a silly movie.
Don’t forget the fist fight on top of the moving loco!
Good old-fashioned 50s hokum.
@JohnActon posted:If you actually tried to tow a locomotive in dirt or sand the weight on the small contact patch of the locomotive wheels would cause the loco to sink into the dirt up to the frame.
In this vein, you might wish to read up on Stonewall Jackson's theft of 18 engines from the B&O and moving them 38 miles cross-country:
@palallin posted:In this vein, you might wish to read up on Stonewall Jackson's theft of 18 engines from the B&O and moving them 38 miles cross-country:
Certainly not to diminish the accomplishments of these men which was super human or at least super horse. Macadam is a much different surface than what was the pretense in the movie. Macadam is an engineered surface with layers of stone and the grit and dust produced in crushing the stone mixed together with a layer of bitumen on top for water resistance. Macadam was essentially the super highway of the nineteenth century common well into the middle of the twentieth century. Never the less one heck of an accomplishment. Thanks for showing that to us, well worth the read. Probably a better read than the movie was a watch. I'm glad I saw both though. j
This movie was just plain old fashion fun!
Monroe should thank her lucky stars they didn't give her screen credits. Don
Marilyn Monroe's first movie can be a little hard to determine. IIRC there are like four movies c.1949-52 where the credits say "and Introducing Marilyn Monroe", implying each one was her first movie.
Typical of Hollywood where fantasy and reality are often at odds! What else is new?
@Tinplate Art posted:Typical of Hollywood where fantasy and reality are often at odds! What else is new?
Ticket to Tomahawk wasn't intended to be a historical documentary on railroading or the wild west. It was intended as entertainment and escapism. The film works on that level.
Rusty
Rusty: My last post was a response to the one by Stix regarding "And introducing Marilyn Monroe" credits in more than one film!
@Tinplate Art posted:Rusty: My last post was a response to the one by Stix regarding "And introducing Marilyn Monroe" credits in more than one film!
In that case, while MM may have "first" performed in four different films, there's no guarantee as to which one would have been released to theaters first.
Rusty
Still a stretch!
Look at it this way... How many times have you seen "Introducing (insert name here)" in the credits and you never see or hear from them again?
Rusty
Ticket to Tomahawk was released in April of 1950 only five years from the last shot of WWII and the Soviet Union was making it clear that they intended to occupy the eastern half of Europe permanently. The country was in no mood for heavy drama type movies. j
@colorado hirailer posted:If it runs, like on the CBS Sunday night movie, l would definitely watch it, for the favored subject matter...not for one of many, although hopefully more lucky, starlets of the day.
It wasn't CBS, but one of the over the air/free specialty channels aired it about a week ago "MOVIES!" . I didn't watch, but noticed her and the movie name.
They may rebroadcast it a few times in the next month or two.
I believe "Ticket to Tomahawk" has been shown on Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics (TCM and AMC respectively) on 'regular' cable TV a few times. There are a couple of cable networks that only do Westerns that probably have aired it also.
Clickbait.
Definitely NOT my choice of a train movie.
JohnAction
You did not tell us it was in COLOR.
Charlie
@Choo Choo Charlie posted:JohnAction
You did not tell us it was in COLOR.
Charlie
Spell my name right or I won't tell you next time. j
Don't be disgruntled about the mis-spelling. "John Action' It sounds like the man you call when something needs to be done!
You know, Super hero status!
Acton... noted.
Can I be John Action then?
(I agree, you might want to run with that ball )
@Chuck Sartor posted:Don't be disgruntled about the mis-spelling. "John Action' It sounds like the man you call when something needs to be done!
You know, Super hero sta
Exactly, what they thought when I was in the army. First name on the company roster every place I went. j
Thanks John! I am going to watch it tonight.
I did a little research about the film and it looks like it was filmed in the Silverton area of Colorado. Now if I could just get the George Eastman House to restore and re-release the silent film "White Desert". Filmed up on Rollins Pass in the winter before the Moffat Tunnel was built.