Sunset Pass ** (1946, James Warren, Nan Leslie, John Laurenz, Jane Greer, Robert Barrat) – Classic Movie Review 11,512

Director William Berke’s 1946 hour-long American black and white Western film Sunset Pass is based on the novel by Zane Grey, and stars James Warren, Nan Leslie, John Laurenz, Jane Greer, Robert Barrat, Harry Woods, Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, and Harry Harvey.

It is one of a long series of RKO Radio Pictures Zane Grey support feature movies produced by Herman Schlom.

Zane Grey’s novel is adapted in a screenplay by Norman Houston, in which a frontier lawman and his sidekick face train robbers along the Arizona border.

James Warren stars as Rocky and John Laurenz plays his sidekick Chito Rafferty, whose money they were protecting is stolen. Rocky identifies one of the robbers and arrests Ash Preston (Robert Clarke). But Ash’s ex-partner Cinnabar (Harry Woods) plans a bank robbery and sends the townsfolk gunning for Ash. Rocky starts falling for Ash’s sister Jane (Nan Leslie).

The original release date was 8 July 1946.

The previous Sunset Pass was made in 1933 with Randolph Scott, Tom Keene, Harry Carey, and Noah Beery, and there is also a lost 1929 version directed by Otto Brower and starring Jack Holt, Nora Lane, and John Loder.

James Warren (February 24, 1913 – March 28, 2001).

James Pringle Wittlig changed his name to James Warren and headed to Hollywood. His first film at RKO was the musical comedy Ding Dong Williams, filmed in 1945, playing a slow-witted movie cowboy with a palomino horse called Star Dust. RKO was making Zane Grey Westerns with Robert Mitchum, was advancing to dramatic A-movies so producer Schlom needed a replacement. He  remembered Warren looked good in Western gear and got him and Star Dust to take over RKO’s Zane Grey series. But RKO’s resident cowboy star Tim Holt returned from military service and resumed his starring series and Warren returned to character roles.

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,512

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