Western Union

Perhaps the most memorable moment in this fine and feisty Western comes with the superb 180-degree pan which starts at a cut telegraph line, moves slowly over to a coil of wire with an arrow through it, and then suddenly discovers a band of hostile Indians, fearsome and beautiful in startlingly brilliant warpaint and feathered headdresses. Lang was the first director really to exploit the possibilities of colour in the Western, and his marvellous sense of composition lifts an otherwise conventional story - the laying of the first trans-continental telegraph wire in 1861, with the inevitable conflict between brothers backing opposing interests - clear out of the rut.