For John Wayne, the ‘30s were ‘galley years,’ stuck on a treadmill of B-Westerns between his flop debut in Raoul Walsh’s pricey THE BIG TRAIL/’30 and John Ford’s ride to the rescue with STAGECOACH/’39. But that decade of programers weren’t monolithic, steadily advancing in budget & acting opportunity. Give this one an extra 20 minutes running time for story & character development, and it might have risen all the way to a major studio programmer. But since it’s a Joseph Kane directed Paul Malvern Production for Republic Pictures, it is what it is. Given a star’s delayed entrance after the surprisingly violent prologue (two parents shot dead, cute son beaten to a pulp), Wayne’s now a grown-up lawyer in the territory; long, lean & ready with facts & fists to take down ‘Mr. Big’ and his illegal Water Rights monopoly. But will the independent cattlemen help? And what about the purty gal whose Dad just made a deal with Mr. Big? Not many twists along the way, but reasonably involving with plenty of time for the stuntmen, horses & wagons to execute some dangerous tricks that have Yakima Canutt’s signature all over them. One horse does a damn flip. Yikes! Sure, so does the rider, but he’s paid extra for the ‘gag.’
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Some of the earlier Wayne programmers are showing up on tv in criminally awful restorations that replace the original soundtracks with modern ‘equivalents’ that have louder sound effects, musical scores, and sound-a-like voices dubbing the entire cast. Wayne’s distinctive halting cadence coming from a voice not quite his. (At least with those colorized editions you can adjust the color down to get something approaching the original b&w, but this leaves no option.)
No comments:
Post a Comment