Reception
In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called the film "spectacular screen entertainment" and applauded director Lang's ability to take a "firmly-constructed fiction" and keep it interesting with "plenty of action and colorful incident." Calling Western Union "one of the finest color films ever seen", Crowther attributes the excellent use of Technicolor for a large share of the film's excitement, producing "breath-taking shots of vast stretches of prairie across which the construction gang is seen drawing its tiny wire". Crowther also singles out the "superior quality" of the acting performances in Western Union writing:
Randolph Scott, who is getting to look and act more and more like William S. Hart, herein shapes one of the truest and most appreciable characters of his career as the party's scout. Dean Jagger is the cool and determined chief engineer of the wire-laying gang—a portrait of the real Edward Creighton which does that gentleman worthy justice. And Robert Young as a 'dude from the East,' Slim Summerville as a terrified cook, Chill Wills as a leather-skinned lineman and Virginia Gilmore as the unobtrusive 'love interest' are just four of a generally excellent cast.Read more about this topic: Western Union (film)
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“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
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