A surprise from John Wayne’s decade in Poverty Row purgatory, pumping out scores of Western programmers all thru the ‘30s, between a flop star debut in Raoul Walsh’s THE BIG TRAIL/’30 and his A-list career resurrection in John Ford’s STAGECOACH/’39. The surprise? It’s a good movie. Low budget, and just under an hour, but this Western, from a Zane Grey story, has a lot going for it. (Unfortunately, that doesn’t include it’s current physical condition. Original elements lost?) Wayne and comic sidekick Syd Saylor (occasionally managing to be funny) are headed West when they stumble into a cattle raid. Joining the fight, they belatedly realize they’re working with the bad guys. Yikes! Getting the heck out of there, they soon find legit work with Wayne’s old pal Johnny Mack Brown. (Wayne behind an apron as wagon cook.) He’s mainly hanging around to woo Brown’s pretty, stylish fiancée Marsha Hunt. Aware of this dangerous new rival (Wayne long, lean & devilishly handsome at 30), Brown ups Wayne to foreman, giving him a big test he secretly hopes he’ll fail: take the herd to town and cash out. Sure enough, a tempting poker game and the bad guys he’d almost gone in with, take him down. It’s a chunk of change Brown would gladly forfeit to reveal Wayne’s true colors and win back the lovely Ms. Hunt. Heck, this isn’t formula stuff at all. Well-directed too by all ‘rounder Charles Barton. Excellent with horses & stunts (check out a dandy chase triggered by a rattlesnake that spooks Hunt’s horse), Barton did quite a lot of comedy and it shows. (Last feature credit? Disney’s THE SHAGGY DOG/’59.) In fact, everything in here could have worked with a big budget. Even more surprising, just about everyone ups their game to make it work here.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A quick look at Wayne’s credits starting around 1936 reveal just how many non-Westerns he was making before STAGECOACH (of all things an A-list Western) bumped him up for good.
AMBP: Alan Ladd listed on the poster, but he's not in the film.
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