The Arizona Express (1924) User Reviews

runaway silent melodrama!

[mjneu59 · 6/10 · 6 November 2010]

The opening credits of this superficial but well-crafted bubblegum silent western describe it (somewhat defensively) as "an honest melodrama", which doesn't make what follows any less improbable or entertaining. The cast includes a handsome railway mail sorter, a virtuous missionary daughter, her upstanding bachelor brother, a beautiful Mexican vamp, a den of murderous thieves, and the streamlined eponymous luxury train, all thrown together in a convoluted plot revolving (spinning out of control) around a bank heist, a cold blooded murder, a frantic race to the State Governor's office to save an innocent man from execution, and true love. Only the mantle of silence keeps it sane.

Seen at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California,on January 17, 1989, alongside excerpts from other silent Railroad films, most notably 'The Great K & A Train Robbery', an early Tom Mix adventure wherein our white-hatted hero foils a gang of desperadoes while performing various feats of daring-do, such as lassoing an imperiled hobo safely out from under a runaway freight train!

When life was cheap

[westerfieldalfred · 7/10 · 28 April 2019]

Stunting has come a long way since Arizona Express was made. Although the extraordinarily dangerous stunts are faked, the merely very dangerous ones are real. And the stars do much of their own. Jumping on a train from the top of a tunnel, exchanging a captive at speed between a train and car, running on car roofs, climbing on car sides, etc., most while the train travels along cliff edges, gives the film a thrill missing from Avengers-type films.

The story is basically the last portion of Intolerance, speeding to save the wrongly accused from execution. The acting is only pro forma, and overacted, even for the period. But the tension - will our heroine get there in time - is immensely heightened by the real danger. See it for the stunts.

"If you wink, you'll miss a thrill!"

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 20 January 2008]

A prolific writer of blood-and-thunder melodramas, Lincoln J. Carter specialized in railroad settings. Although his plays were not acclaimed by the critics (in fact they rarely opened in New York), they were extremely popular with touring companies before World War One. "The Arizona Express" was one of his most famous offerings, and here, considerably expanded, it has been brought to the screen with at least three times as many thrills.

Director Thomas Buckingham is another forgotten man who deserves to be re-instated. That "The Arizona Express" is so successful is due not only to its many edge-of-the-seat action highlights (all of them breathtakingly staged against real locations), but to the skill with which the movie has been cut and paced and to the fine acting Buckingham has elicited from his players. The only disappointment is Pauline Starke, who displays plenty of stamina but little charisma here.

Production values are mighty impressive, with lots of location shooting and first-rate photography by Sidney Wagner.