Does anyone remember The Young Riders television series? Though that one got into the never never land of our old west mythology eventually at least it got it right about one thing. The Pony Express riders were in fact young teenage boys. William F. Cody was all of 13 when he was riding for them. James Butler Hickok, later nicknamed Wild Bill, was in his early twenties.

So when we see Charlton Heston doing all he's doing as Buffalo Bill in this film Pony Express, he's really playing a thirteen year old living out a fantasy dream of having both Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling chasing him.

Pony Express may in fact be one of the last of that grand tradition of B westerns where famous characters from the American frontier are taken and put into plots that had nothing to do with reality. Cody's famous fight with Cheyenne chief Yellow Hand is also included here although that in fact took place in the 1870s not in 1860.

In this film, Charlton Heston and Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok stumble upon a plot to detach California from the United States while the north and south sectional conflict edges closer to civil war. Part of that plan is stop the Pony Express and its promise of quick mail delivery. Rhonda Fleming's brother is part of the dastardly scheme and Jan Sterling plays a Calamity Jane like character who has eyes for Cody, but Cody has them for Fleming.

This film also marked the farewell appearance of Porter Hall who has a small role as another frontier character, legendary mountain man Jim Bridger. It's possible that Bridger, Cody, and Hickok may have all met at the same time, but I doubt it was under the circumstances shown.

Don't let the A list cast fool you. What you have in Pony Express is one of that dying group of B westerns which were getting a new life on television at this time.

There are just enough accurate historical elements to make this story interesting, but don't go betting the ranch on Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok working together to help establish the Pony Express. Cody did work as an Express rider, but he was only fifteen years old at the time! A young Hickok met Cody once prior to 1860, and later joined him in a stage production in 1873, but quit well before Cody formed his 'Wild West Show' in 1882.

I've seen a handful of films now with the Pony Express as the principal theme, and was intrigued by the story's mention of the numbers involved - a hundred ninety relay stations, five hundred seventy horses and eighty riders making the trip between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. Virtually the same math showed up in the 1939 film "Cavalcade of the West" starring Hoot Gibson. The newspaper headline in the movie dated April 3rd, 1860 was historically correct, that was the day the first rider took off from St. Joseph westward bound. What wasn't mentioned, and it wouldn't have worked for this story, was that a Pony Express Rider left San Francisco on the same day heading East to St. Joe! That relay made it in ten days as well.

Adding some intrigue to this story was the idea that there were behind the scene elements who wanted to see the Pony Express concept fail, for both political and financial reasons. Stage companies delivering the mail saw a threat to their business because delivery time would be virtually cut in half. There was also a political motivation involved with those who didn't want California to join the United States, particularly on the Confederate side. That was given some prominence in the story with each rider on the maiden run voicing California's rejecting slavery.

As far as the principals involved, Charlton Heston made for a resolute Buffalo Bill Cody, while Forrest Tucker was pretty much Wild Bill Hickok in name only. Neither portrayal was physically accurate to the historical characters, but if you didn't know that, it's not a deal breaker. Jan Sterling's 'Denny' character immediately brought to mind Calamity Jane, while Rhonda Fleming brings some credibility to her turn from the anti-Express faction to those supporting Hickok. The romance angle between them doesn't get very far in the story, which is just as well; I liked Sterling better as the tomboyish Denny.

If you'd like to explore some more films dealing with the Pony Express, there's the one mentioned earlier, along with another picture from the same year, 1953, with Gene Autry titled "Last of the Pony Riders". Roy Rogers did one as well early in his career with the 1939 movie "Frontier Pony Express". That one's interesting from the standpoint of the story line in this film, it has Roy's character as a Pony Express rider who's approached by a Confederate Senator who's attempting to establish California as a separate republic. Even Trigger gets in on the action, as a reliable Pony Express mount he's requested by fellow riders by name!

This film may feature some real characters they weren't involved in the founding of the real Pony Express... still as a work of fiction it is entertaining enough. The film opens with 'Buffalo' Bill Cody left stranded in the middle of the prairie after his horse is killed in an Indian attack. Luckily for him the stage coach passes by not long afterwards and he gets on board. There are two people inside already; Evelyn Hastings and her brother Rance. They haven't been travelling long when they meet what appears to be a group of soldiers; they claim that they have been sent to arrest the Hastings for treason but Bill realises that they aren't who they claim to be. The Hastings do however wish for California to break away from the United States as they believe their state is too distant from the rest of the country to be cared about. Bill, and his friend 'Wild' Bill Hickok, however are doing something about bringing it closer to the rest of the Union... not in distance but in the time it takes news to get through. They are working on setting up a string of relay stations across the country so that news may be passed from rider to rider rather than relying on the slow stage coach. Rance Hastings and his collaborators are determined to prevent the express running, and to make matters worse a local Indian chief is determined to kill Cody. Not surprisingly there is also a romantic subplot; tomboy Denny Russell is clearly in love with Cody but gets jealous when he appears to be more interested in Evelyn.

Charlton Heston was not yet a major star when this was made although he is clearly the star of the film; he puts in a solid performance... although I don't know how somebody in 1860 could have a smile like that; he looked like he was in a toothpaste commercial with his brilliant white teeth! Rhonda Fleming, playing Evelyn, was clearly meant to be the leading lady however she was upstaged by the short-haired Jan Stirling who played the feisty Denny. There was a good amount of action spread throughout the film including plenty of gunfights, a fight between Cody and an Indian chief using tomahawks and even an explosion. The story is fairly standard with separatists and Indians clearly meant to be viewed as the bad guys, although the latter are at least bad guys with honour; while those wishing to do their bit to preserve the Union being obvious heroes; the final shoot out did feature one surprise but I won't spoil that here. At a hundred and one minutes it is clearly too long for a B-western however it does have a B-western feel to it; it might be best looked at that way as it passes the time well enough but it will never be a classic of the genre.