Lippert Pictures Series

Robert L. Lippert controlled a successful low-budget American film production and distribution company from 1948 to 1956, producing short, fast-paced westerns and crime films with a penchant for obligatory humor, and the occasional jarring edits. This is my seventh of eight Lippert films.

WESTERN PACIFIC AGENT (1950)

This sixty-five-minute Sigmund Neufeld Productions crime drama was directed by Sam Newfield, a frequent partner with Lippert Pictures. It was written by Fred Myton, based on a story by Milton Raison, and stars Kent Taylor, Sheila Ryan, and the less familiar Mickey Knox. The film opens with title credits over Western Pacific train footage. Told in flashback by one informed passenger to another, it centers on railroad detectives during “The West Coast Kid” case. It suspiciously appears like a Western Pacific promotional film. After the film's climax, they return to close the film. At any rate, their encapsulated synopsis offers the benefit of shortening the crux of the film. I was impressed overall with how efficiently this one has been pulled together with its element of potential danger and intrigue—a mechanical drawbridge plays a key role at both ends of this film.

Mickey Knox's one-dimensional hate performance is something a lot of actors can pull off, so I was not that impressed. The psychopathic killer intercepts a big cash payroll by raising a drawbridge, halting a rail agent's progress. Two murders later, he is stuck with bags of traceable bills. Money that is intended for his father's general store. When he tries to warm up to his father in hopes of a hand-out, the father knows his lying son too well. Knox angrily storms off, hops the next freight and sits in on a couple of homeless camps to hide. But word gets around quickly within a loyal band of hobos.

A Lippert levity regular, Sid Melton plays a nervous simpleton who absorbs information literally, not clearly processing what he hears. Some might suggest Melton's character has no place in this film, but that is shortsighted. Similar characters have become common in a number of modern, team-oriented adventure films—like the socially awkward computer geek. Melton had a natural delivery for such a character and it may be Lippert's best use of the comedian. His first scenes with Taylor are the funniest. I suspect his dry, deadpan delivery is a problem for most Millennials. Deadpan is hard to recognize on social media.

Melton is the first to come in contact with the marked bills and Knox. Taylor becomes increasingly perturbed with having to clarify things to Melton over and over. So it seems to make little sense for Taylor to ask him to tag along to help with identification. But Melton's assistance pays off. Taylor and law enforcement, including a ballooned sheriff, Dick Elliott—right out of a Warner Bros cartoon—corner Knox in a shack. During the shootout, he yells back at the police in true comedic parody form, "Come and get me, copper!" Knox's father approaches the shack but he is wounded in more ways than one. Knox escapes, taking with him a bullet in the leg to the harbor drawbridge. But the bridge is ascending. The music score accelerates the climax to an exciting level. The futility of Knox's escape is no secret to the audience. What goes up must come down.

Note: American railroads peaked in the Thirties with the colorful streamlined passenger trains being the epitome of first-class travel in their effort to woo passengers away from the increasing popularity of the airline industry. Finally, as a general rule, the always-open boxcar door's invitation to hop a freight was common for decades. By the end of the Sixties, most railroads cracked down on boxcar hitchhikers.