With Tim Holt still in military service and Robert Mitchum promoted to "A" pictures, RKO Radio attempted to create a new B-western star in the form of James Warren, who starred in three sagebrushers over a three-year period. Warren's second RKO effort was Sunset Pass, a remake of an oft-filmed Zane Grey story. The star is cast as Rocky, a railway express officer assigned to break up a train-robbery gang operating on the Arizona border. John Laurenz plays Rocky's Spanish-Irish sidekick Chito Rafferty, a role later assigned to Richard Martin in the Tim Holt series. One of the film's two heroines is played by Jane Greer, who unlike James Warren was destined for bigger things at RKO. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
Lanky
Gary Cooper-lookalike
James Warren stars in this routine remake of the 1933
Randolph Scott Western, which benefits from fine production values and a good supporting cast that includes the always watchable
Harry Woods as the villain, pretty
Nan Leslie as the girl, and young
Robert Clarke as her wayward brother. Clarke specialized in playing slightly degenerate youths in those early pre-sci-fi stardom years and was never less than interesting. On the debit side, John Laurenz replaces
Richard Martin in the sidekick role of the Irish-Mexican Chito Bustamente Rafferty and although a fine supporting actor in his own right, he fails to make the character his own. A replacement for RKO's resident B-Western hero
Tim Holt, who had been drafted in 1943,
James Warren never really caught on with fans of the genre and would only make a total of three Westerns for the studio. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide