Overland Telegraph (1951) User Reviews

When Tim and Chito Go Job Hunting Trouble Usually Follows

[Henchman_Number1 · 6/10 · 5 July 2016]

Passing through looking for work, Tim and Chito get caught up in robbery, murder and a love triangle when local businessman Paul Manning (George Nader) hatches a plan to save his failing supply business. Manning who will lose his contract with the Army due to a new telegraph line, plots to halt construction of the line with the aid of saloon owner and all-around town bad guy Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont) and his henchmen (Robert J. Wilke, Fred Graham, Robert Bray). Manning soon finds himself in over his head as events spin out of control.

Like most of the post war Tim Holt Flicks, 'Overland Telegraph' has better than average production values and a fairly evolved story line as B-Westerns go. Holt once again teams up with prolific director Lesley Selander to crank out another pretty good saddle burner, which by this time Holt and Selander could do in their sleep. Holt who had grown tired of the direction of his movies and Hollywood life in general, has less screen time than usual. It has more of the feel of an ensemble cast. Ironically over the next decade much of the supporting cast would move on to more prominent roles in popular television programs of the era. Holt, though still a relatively young man, would pack up his bags and leave Hollywood behind in less than a year.

As RKO cut back production budgets and Tim Holt became progressively disengaged from the movie business, the series declined in the final years. Even so 'Overland Telegraph' is one of Tim Holt's best later films.

Another Fine Tim Holt B Western

[boblipton · 7/10 · 14 November 2007]

This is another of the good B Westerns that Tim Holt did for RKO from when he took over the franchise about 1940 through 1952, with a pause during World War Two for Air Force service. Besides the usual B+ values, including good comic relief by series sidekick Richard Martin, we get a slightly off-kilter performance by Hugh Beaumont (best known as the father on "Leave it to Beaver") as the chief bad guy and Gail Davis as the female lead for this episode -- usually this series featured competent and strong-willed female characters. I must say that I am particularly impressed by Miss Davis' performance here. Judging by her IMDb resume, she seems to have had a fairly undistinguished career. But given the strong writing in this movie, it's likely she was not so well served elsewhere.

Changing the west

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 18 November 2016]

The Overland Telegraph is changing the west and Tim Holt and Richard Martin are around for the changes. It's also interfering in lives of a lot of people both economically and romantically.

This Tim Holt B western has a bit more plot to it than most of the genre. Storekeeper George Nader is stuck with a lot of inventory earmarked for the army. But the coming of the telegraph means that posts are closing and Nader could be ruined. He enlists the help of his friend and local saloon owner Hugh Beaumont to temporarily wreck the telegraph construction camp and supplies that Cliff Clark runs along with his daughter Gail Davis. There's also an unspoken romantic triangle going with Beaumont, Nader, and saloon singer Mari Blanchard that gets into the plot in an unhealthy way.

Outsiders Tim and Chito are the ones who solve all the mysteries and entanglements. Tim thinks the telegraph is the marvel of the age. But the idea of communicating cross the continent means for Chito a way to keep tabs on his senoritas in California. Chito Rafferty always had a one track mind.

Familiar television faces like Gail Davis from Annie Oakley, George Nader from The Man And The Challenge and Ward Cleaver himself as the chief bad guy makes this film, well familiar.

Good entry in the Tim Holt series.

Davis Steals the Show

[dougdoepke · 13 August 2016]

Tim and Chito get mixed up in a scheme to sabotage newly laid telegraph lines. Seems the new technology is changing how the army provisions its outposts, thus undercutting local providers.

The 60-minutes amount to a good matinée western, with a complex plot and lots of maneuvering that includes a really engaging Gail Davis (no wonder Gene Autry grabbed onto her), plus familiar greater LA locations. Holt fans, however, may be disappointed since he doesn't get much focal screen time, but is more like one of the bunch. Also, catch familiar baddies Robert Wilke and Fred Graham picking up paydays. In fact, Wilke gets more dialog than usual, while Graham gets a headache from Chito. There's also a good detail touch where Manning gets shot in the arm and favors it for the rest of the movie. Ordinarily, these matinée productions dispensed with such realistic detail. Also, the plot premise about how the telegraph affects local businessmen is informative and not something covered in history books.

Usually western baddies aren't as handsome as the hero. Here that's not the case with budding matinée idol George Nader as semi-bad guy Manning, and Beaver Cleaver's dad Hugh Beaumont as baddie Roberts. Add Holt's good-looking sidekick Martin as Chito, and I'm thinking the ordinary looking Tim Holt has a really strong Hollywood ego in an industry where fragile egos usually don't tolerate competition.

Anyway, the movie's a solid production, of the sort that unfortunately would soon give way to cheaper 30-minute TV.

OK flick partly spoiled by sidekick's antics

[FlushingCaps · 5/10 · 5 March 2023]

Tim Holt is a well-known Western star whose father also starred in Westerns and other movies, beginning in the silent era. In fact, Tim's first listed role came in a 1923 silent film named Hollywood playing the young son of his actual father, Jack Holt. Tim was no more than 4 at the time.

In this film, Tim and his sidekick, Chito are heading toward a town looking for ranch work, admiring the telegraph wires on a line being constructed to California. They come to the aid of a woman hanging upside down from the top of a telegraph pole, shooting to get attention, and she seemed rather belligerent, demanding to be released quickly from these gentlemen who might have been inclined to leave her hanging because of her rude attitude...but they released her anyhow. She is Terry Muldoon (actress Gail Davis of Annie Oakley fame), the daughter of the man who has the contract to construct the line.

Later, our heroes come upon a group of six men destroying a camp for the company constructing the telegraph lines. Tim wounds one of the men in the leg, but all six escape. They follow the bad men's trail, well, two of them after the gang split up, to town and to a saloon where the two men went in for help from their leader, Ward Cleaver...I mean Hugh Beaumont, who owns the saloon and hired them to destroy the telegraph materials. He had a dual purpose, one helping his "friend" Paul Manning, who has put all of his money into materials needed by a nearby army outpost, but now faces bankruptcy because the post will be shut down due to the telegraph line making their presence unnecessary in the area.

To complicate matters, in an early scene we see that Beaumont's character, Brad Roberts, is not happy about the upcoming wedding between Manning and the singer in his saloon, Stella Scott, because she used to be his girl and he wants Manning out of the way so he can get back together with her.

For those who only know Beaumont as the Beaver's dad, he was in a lot of Westerns, and I think was usually a bad guy businessman-not a noted outlaw or a rancher or the town doctor or anything like that, but a businessman. He does a fine job acting in these dramas. One thing I caught in his intro scene in his office was as Manning and Stella were about to leave his office, he was smiling in the background. I don't know if this was in the script because he was not at all the focal point of the shot, but the couple stopped to kiss before leaving and just as they started to kiss, Roberts (Beaumont) suddenly dropped his smile and looked a bit unhappy.

All the plot I've given comes in the early portion. We move on to all sorts of plot twists, including a shoot-out, a stage coach hold-up, a murder, basically everything the Western genre features regularly except a schoolmarm and an Indian attack.

You need to pay close attention to follow this plot. Overall, this was a decent, not great Western.

But the score I give is lower than the main part deserves because of sidekick Chito. I know sidekicks cannot be seen as being smarter than the hero, but Tonto, California (Hoppy's sidekick), Gabby, and all the others may be a bit foolish, too talkative, unfocused on what they need to do to go after women, and other things, but Chito takes the cake. He does all these things so repeatedly, he is much more than just annoying. He continues this throughout the movie, in almost every scene, and he finishes leaving me with the conclusion that as portrayed, his character is the DUMBEST sidekick in the history of horse operas.

He boasts of being Irish, but has a heavy Spanish accent from his mother's side of the family. So he alternates between calling the women Senoritas or Colleens. He is constantly on the prowl to talk to any female in sight, not caring about what Tim wants him to do. In one scene, he wants to jump in the stage coach to go on the honeymoon with the couple right after their wedding because he has "never gone on a honeymoon."

Thus I can only give this one a 5.

Overland telegraph

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 15 April 2023]

In order to hinder the construction of a new telegraph line for his own financial gain, scheming shopkeeper Paul Manning (George Nader) enlists the assistance of a gang of outlaws led by Brad Roberts (Hugh Beaumont). Unfortunately for the bad guys, Holt and his cohort Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin) sense that there's foul play afoot and embark on an investigation.

This entry is a lesser one, mainly it isn't has engaging and the plot isn't so loaded with incidents, however the double-crossing relationship between Nader and Beaumont and their complex motives is interesting. It adds some nuanced to the story. Another interesting character is Gail Davis who plays a daughter of a telegram construction work and does some work on the wire.