Synopsis
Union Pacific (1939), directed by Cecil B. DeMille for Paramount, is an epic Western you can watch online on iFILM. The premise is historical: one of Lincoln's final acts authorises pushing the Union Pacific Railroad through open wilderness to California. The film is what that actually cost — gunfights, dynamite, and a sustained fight against sabotage across the prairie.
Jeff Butler (Joel McCrea) is the company's troubleshooter assigned to keep the build on schedule against financier Asa Barrows, who's bankrolling gambler Sid Campeau to slow it down by any means. Butler's personal life runs on the same tracks: Molly Monahan (Barbara Stanwyck), the engineer's daughter, stands between him and his wartime friend Dick Allen — already in Barrows' pocket. Anthony Quinn appears in an early supporting role, and Victor Milner's cinematography gives the landscape the scale DeMille demanded on every production.
Released the same year as John Ford's Stagecoach, it doesn't aim for the intimacy Ford found in the desert — it aims for spectacle, and for a 135-minute picture shot in 1939, it earns its runtime. Stream Union Pacific (1939) online on iFILM.
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