Breakheart Pass (1975) on Netflix
Diphtheria strikes the garrison at Fort Humboldt, so a train carries soldiers and medical supplies through the Rocky Mountains. At Myrtle, Marshal Pearce boards with his prisoner, John Deakin.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.7/1010,504 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes68%
Trailer
Plot summary
Diphtheria has struck the garrison at Fort Humboldt, a remote army outpost, so a special express train heads through the Rocky Mountains with replacement soldiers and medical supplies. Nevada Governor Richard Fairchild and his fiancée Marica, the fort commander's daughter, travel in a private car at the rear. At the whistle stop of Myrtle, United States Marshal Pearce comes aboard with his prisoner, John Deakin, a man a newspaper advertisement names as a notorious outlaw and prices at a $2,000 reward. As the train goes on, passengers are killed or go missing.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Breakheart Pass (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Charles Bronson demanded that the script keep his character's detective reveal until the end, and the change was made. During filming he found the script altered again to reveal it early, and went along with it because he felt he could not leave the production.- For the scene where the caboose and troop carriages crash off the rails into a ravine, six cameras filmed the cars falling 200 ft into the canyon, but the dummies standing in for the soldiers failed to fall out during the crash.
- Breakheart Pass was the final film role for veteran stuntman Yakima Canutt, who was 79 and in charge of second unit direction, with his son Joe among the stuntmen.
- Lewiston realtor Irv Falling, a retired U.S. Army colonel who had helped the Bronsons find a home to rent, played a cameo as Marica's father, the commander of Fort Humboldt, in the film's final snowy scene.
- The hire of the train used in the film, Great Western Railway steam locomotive #75, together with its carriages and track, cost $500,000.
- The opening scenes in the Myrtle settlement were shot at a set specially built to look like an old abandoned gold-rush town, just outside Arrow Junction, about 15 miles east of Lewiston along the lower Clearwater River.
