STATION WEST (1948)

In an Old West town, two Army officers have been shot dead while guarding a gold shipment, just the latest in a series of such robberies. Dick Powell comes strolling into town and gets a room at the hotel run by Burl Ives, who spends most of his time singing ballads about strangers coming to town. Powell heads to the saloon where he watches Jane Greer sing and takes a shine to her, then picks a fight with a young soldier, but later we find out that the fight was planned; the soldier was waiting for Powell, who has been sent from back East by the Army to investigate the gold robberies. Powell is taken to meet Tom Powers, the commander of an army post, and his mistress (Agnes Moorehead), a gold mine owner, who both seem skeptical that he'll be able to accomplish much. But Powell soon gets the lay of the land: Greer is actually the owner of the saloon and casino, and the de facto head of the community; Gordon Oliver is her right-hand man; Guinn Williams is a tough bouncer; Raymond Burr is a lawyer who is in over his head with gambling debts owed to Greer. Powell gets into an intense fistfight with Williams which he barely wins. Greer warms up to him and gets him a job working security for a stagecoach, and on one nighttime run with a gold shipment of Moorehead's, Powell's coach is attacked. His assistant is killed and he is knocked unconscious. Getting to the bottom of the mystery may be difficult until Powell can figure out who is friend and who is foe.

This is often considered a Western noir, but it's really an average Western crime story with a femme fatale figure (Greer) who might be at home in a real film noir--as she was a year earlier in the classic OUT OF THE PAST. The presence of Powell, who does his tough guy turn as he did in the 1944 MURDER MY SWEET, may also seem like a noir element. The existing print of this film runs about 80 minutes, but a running time of 97 minutes is reported on IMDb. The trimming of nearly 20 minutes would explain some odd plotholes near the end. An Army uniform button seems to be an important clue to something, but I never figured out what. Even more puzzling, Moorehead pulls a stunt with the gold that seems out of character and it's never explained. Greer is not as effective here as in PAST, but there's a strong supporting cast (Moorehead, Oliver, Burr, Regis Toomey) that keeps things moving. The fight between Powell and Williams goes on for a while, but is choreographed rather sloppily. Watchable but don't expect a genuine film noir. Pictured are Greer and Powell. [Criterion Channel]