Kansas Pacific is a 1953

1953 in film

The year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...

 U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Cinecolor

Cinecolor

Cinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two color film process, based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel and Alan M...

 western film released by Allied Artists Pictures and directed by Ray Nazarro

Ray Nazarro

Ray Nazarro was an American film and television director, producer, and screenwriter-Biography:Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Nazarro entered the movie business during the silent era, and began directing short films in 1929 with In and Out...

. It stars Sterling Hayden

Sterling Hayden

Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...

 and Eve Miller

Eve Miller

Eve Miller , was an American actress who appeared in 41 films between 1945 and 1961. She was born in Los Angeles, California, USA and died in Van Nuys, California by suicide aged 50.-Early life:...

. The movie offers a fictionalized account of the struggle to build the Kansas Pacific Railway

Kansas Pacific Railway

The Kansas Pacific Railway was a historic railroad company that operated in the western United States in the late 19th century. It was a federally chartered railroad, backed with government land grants. It operated many of the first long-distance lines in the state of Kansas in the 1870s,...

 in the 1860s during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. In the movie the building of the railroad in Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 is opposed by sympathizers of the Confederacy

Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

.

Gen. Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

 sends a Corps of Engineers

United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...

 captain (Hayden) incognito to complete the railroad in order to supply western outposts when war is declared. Opposing the railway is Confederate William Quantrill

William Quantrill

William Clarke Quantrill was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War. After leading a Confederate bushwhacker unit along the Missouri-Kansas border in the early 1860s, which included the infamous raid and sacking of Lawrence, Kansas in 1863, Quantrill eventually ended up in...

 (Reed Hadley

Reed Hadley

Reed Hadley was an American movie, television and radio actor.Reed Hadley was born Reed Herring in Petrolia in Clay County near Wichita Falls, Texas, to Bert Herring, an oil well driller, and his wife Minnie. Hadley had one sister, Bess Brenner. He was reared in Buffalo, New York...

), whose mission is to stop or delay the railway from being completed.

The rights to the film are currently in the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

.

Production

The movie was filmed at the Iverson Movie Ranch and the Sierra Railroad

Sierra Railroad

The Sierra Railroad Company a privately owned common carrier which has a freight division which handles all track maintenance and freight operations for all branches owned by the Sierra Railroad Company...

 in what is now Railtown 1897 State Historic Park

Railtown 1897 State Historic Park

Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, and its operating entity, the Sierra Railway, is known as "The Movie Railroad." Both entities are a heritage railway and are a unit of the California State Park System. Railtown 1897 is located in Jamestown, California...

, Jamestown, California

Jamestown, California

Jamestown is a census-designated place in Tuolumne County, California, United States. The population was 3,433 at the 2010 census, up from 3,017 at the 2000 census.A scene from the movie Hidalgo was filmed in Jamestown...

. Walter Mirisch

Walter Mirisch

Walter Mortimer Mirisch is an American film producer. In his long and successful motion picture career, Walter Mirisch has produced some of the industry’s finest and most memorable films...

 of Allied Artists had Walter Wanger

Walter Wanger

Walter Wanger was an American film producer. An intellectual and a socially conscious movie executive who produced provocative message movies and glittering romantic melodramas, Wanger's career began at Paramount Pictures in the 1920s and led him to work at virtually every major studio as either a...

's name put on the picture as a producer, although he was in prison for shooting agent Jennings Lang

Jennings Lang

Jennings Lang was an American film producer, as well as a screenwriter and actor.- Biography :...

, whom he believed to be having an affair with his wife, Joan Bennett

Joan Bennett

Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...

. Thanks to Mirisch, Wanger received a producer's billing, salary and profit participation.