a5c7b9f00b A youthful Buffalo Bill Cody joins the newly-formed Pony Express as a station hand and replaces the regular rider when he is shot by Southern sympathizer. Young Bill Cody wants to be a Pony Express rider, but is too heavy. When one of the riders is shot by Southern sympathizers while delivering vital mail, Cody must ride the route himself. Pony Express Days (1940) <br/><br/>*** (out of 4) <br/><br/>Impressive Technicolor short from Warner features an young George Reeves playing the legendary "Buffalo" Bill Cody. In the film, Cody is turned down as a rider for the Pony Express but soon gets his shot when Indians kill another rider. An important message must get to California about Lincoln being elected President and without this message it could cause the state to pull from the union. Historic accuracies aside, this is a very entertaining little film that makes one wish that shorts still played a part in Hollywood today. Even though Eason directed over one-fifty films, he's probably best known for the stunts in the silent Ben-Hur but he handles the story and action here very well. He does a great job at keeping the film moving fast and the riding scenes are very well done as are the fight sequences. Reeves does a pretty good job in is role delivering a fine performance that allows him to show off his action skills but he also manages a few nice laughs as well. This was a short film made in 1940, back when they used to show features like this before or in between movies.<br/><br/>The plot is rather rather predicable – and to my knowledge – pretty historically inaccurate. It is about a privately owned parcel service that tries to link up Missouri and California. They believe their business will do better if they can get news of Abe Lincolns election to CA in record time, which upsets some Southern sympathizers who believe they won't get California to join the Confederacy if they know that Lincoln won. (?) What ever one wants to make of the plot, the important thing about the film is that absolutely beautiful western scenery in stunning technicolor, which seems to have been the real draw in the first place. In a time when very few films were in color -probably none that were shown with this - the audience must have really gotten a kick out of this films painting like cinematography and vivid action sequences.<br/><br/>It IS available on DVD – I ran across it on the 1st season of "The Adventures of Superman"
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