Fans of McCrea looking for a standard shoot-em-up should look elsewhere. That would be okay if the movie were as good as most McCrea westerns, but it's not. Too much time is spent trying to get Ramsay's (McCrea) love life straightened out. The trouble is this tends to crowd out the interesting other two themes— namely, opening highways to the West and action and adventure along the way.
Now, with so much going on, narrative transitions from one thread to the next become important. But, I agree with reviewer Maxwell-- this key element in the storyline is handled very clumsily. It's sometimes hard to follow developments because of muddy segues, plus a sloppy script that appears to want to do too much with too many marginal characters. On a different note, what's with IMDb listing Lloyd Nolan in the credits. If he's in the picture, I couldn't spot him, and he's not someone easy to miss. Maybe he got edited out.
On the plus side are actors McCrea, winsome wife Dee, and a fearsome Mary Nash, some good crowd scenes, and several edifying historical facts. Still, I too, was left wondering just what Wells-Fargo did as a day-to-day business, which seems an odd omission given the movie's title. Anyway, to me, the movie was a disappointment despite a bigger than average budget and an effort at historical sweep.
