John Wayne Movie Review: ***The Lucky Texan (1934)

John Wayne as Jerry Mason
George "Gabby Hayes" as his "old timer" friend Jake Benson
Barbara Sheldon as Jake's granddaughter Betty

Mason and Benson are lucky in finding a gold mine.  However it is not all luck because there are others who would like their gold and would kill for it.  

Movie Review: **^The Cariboo Trail (1950)

This movie takes place in Canada.  It involves a group of men who have a dream of becoming cattle ranchers in Canada.  However the local gold minors do not take cattle to cattle runners, feeling their economy is set.  They run the cattle off, and end up rustling them or butchering them.  In this one of the men is injured and ends up losing his arm.  He becomes embittered and joins the gold men's boss who owns most of the town.  When one of the men, Jim Redfern  (Randolph Scott) finds gold, the town boss turns this on him too and he has to run for his life.  Local gold prospector Grizzley (George Gabby Hayes) takes a liking to our boys, and just happens to have cattle relatives who sponsor a drive of 300 cattle to the area.  They bring them north, but again our bad guys want to steal them.  It ends in a big shootout situation.
The thing I didn't understand was why the gold miners where so set against cattle men.  You would think they like steak as well as anyone.  In the end our embittered friend is the one who turns on the gold boss, and saves the day.

Movie Review: **^The Lawless Frontier (John Wayne, 1934)

This movie is a typical Lone Star representation of John Wayne.  There are some technical issue with the copy on You Tube as a few minutes are skipped.  John Wayne fights the bad guys and gets the girl.  This movie has a couple horse chases, and one chase with John Tobin (Wayne) chasing our outlaw Zanti (Earl Dwire) sliding on a board (like a skim board) down a creek.  This movie also has Ruby (Sheila Terry) as our love interest and her father Dusty (Gabby Hayes.)  Wayne is after Zanti as he killed his parents.  Then he and his gang come upon Ruby and Dusty, and Ruby overhears them laying plans to steal her away and kill her father.  They take off, and Tobin rescues them.  Then they just have to convince the Marshall who the bad guys are. 

Movie Review: ***The Man from Utah (John Wayne, 1934)

Here is a Lone Star John Wayne movie with a twist.  Wayne plays John Weston, a cowboy from Utah, who is in Nevada and happens to stop a hold up.  The Marshall (Gabby Hayes) hires him to go under cover to roust out a gang of rodeo thieves.  Many rodeo participants have gotten sick, and some have even died.  Wayne travels by canoe part of the trip (Lone Star loves canoes) and prevents a stage coach hold up, rescuing a couple women, the banker's daughter (Polly Ann Young) and the other in on the job (Anita Campillo.)  The treat of this presentation is we get to see an entire rodeo--specialty acts, stage coach race, doggie tying, bull riding, cow wrestling, bronco riding, trick roping, it is pretty fun.  He has to beat the gang's best man, Cheyenne Kent (Yakima Canutt.) Weston gets in with the group, and they try to way lay him, as he is winning the rodeo.  He escapes uninjured, so next is the needle.  Can Weston figure out how the poison is delivered, get the girl, win the rodeo, save the bank with all the rodeo money from robbery and keep himself alive?  Of course he can. 

Movie Review: ***War of the Wildcats aka In Old Oklahoma (John Wayne, 1943)

This 1943 John Wayne film shows the early oil business in Oklahoma.  Jim Gardner (Albert Dekker) is the big oil tycoon and he wants to drill on the Indian land.  However he wants to give them a bad deal, and they only alternative is Daniel Somers (Wayne), a cowboy, not and oilman.  Add a young woman, Catherine Allen (Martha Scott) a school teacher who is run out of town after writing a romance novel.  She gets stuck between the tycoon and the cowboy.  Teddy Roosevelt gives his old soldier the contract, but also a time limit to deliver oil in Tulsa.  Gardner sets up as a blocking stone, as he gets the contract if they can't deliver.  Two characters help Somers see that the woman is in love with him, but he thinks she is with Gardner.  Bessie Baxter (Marjorie Rambeau) runs the hotel.  Despirit Dean (Gabby Hayes) is his old friend and side kick.  This movie is exciting as Gardner buys the pipeline and the have to move their oil to Tulsa by wagon, going through fire set by Gardner's men, and with Gardner's men among the teamsters, but sabotaging things at the same time.  The women have to pull a few fast ones to get the time limit extended a few minutes.  Here again it comes down to a fight at the end.

Movie Review: ***^Rainbow Valley (John Wayne, 1935)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msQ5ewVVhco
John Wayne portrays John Martin, a drifter, just out of prison who heads for Rainbow Valley, a community which has been subject to a band of outlaws, who won't even let the town folk make a road out for fear that this will bring the law.  They have the community pretty well pinned in.  Martin rescues the mail carrier, George Hale (George Gabby Hayes) and Old Nellie, his car from the outlaws, and in doing so meets the mail mistress, Eleanor (Lucile Brown.)  Martin takes the precarious position of road foreman, and has to defend his workers from the gang.  Hale helps with his car and some dynamite he has from the mine.  When the town discovers Martin is and ex con, they assume he is with the outlaws, and decide to take them all out once and for all.  Everyone is headed for a big battle. 

Movie Review: ***The Star Packer (John Wayne)

The Star Packer, Lone Star Pictures, directed by R.N. Bradbury 1934.
John Teavers (John Wayne) is a Federal Marshall with his Native American companion Yak (Yakima Canutt)  They have come to town to put a stop to The Shadow (George Hayes) and his gang who have been stealing, killing town sheriffs and stage drivers.  This is a mystery at its finest.  The bad guys are able to shoot the sheriffs in the middle of town, with no one noticing what happens.  It really is a puzzle that takes all the Marshall's boldness, and Yak's cunning to crack.  There are many notorious bad guys in the gang at the hide out; not only that they also have a machine gun.  Anita Matlock (Verna Hillie) has come to claim her father's share of the ranch, but her uncle is not very thrilled.  Teavers has to rescue her a couple times, and with rescuing comes love.

Movie Review: **^Blue Steel (1934)

John Wayne portrays John Carruthers, a U.S. Marshall who is undercover trying to smoke out a notorious bandit.  The Sherrif (George Hayes) sees him after a heist, and thinks the Marshall is the culprit, and begins to follow him.  Circumstances are such that the Marshall saves the Sheriff's life, and they become partners, but the Sheriff still figures he will need to arrest hm at some time.
The bandit is not the worse of the town's problems.  The leading citizen, Malgrove (Edward Piel Sr.) is leading a group of thieves to convince everyone to vacate the town  He has discovered there is a rich vein of gold running underneath everyone's farms.  He has been stealing all the supplies coming into town, and the citizens are about ready to give up.  The town has sent a pack team to carry in supplies, and they too are waylaid.  A young woman, Eleanor Hung (Betty Mason) and her father are part of the team.  They flee the bandits, and the Marshall and Sheriff intervene.  However the father is killed.  They all make it to town, and Malgrove agrees to take Eleanor to his ranch to care for her in her grief.  A side plot is Malgrove has always thought of marrying her.  She overhears their scheming, uncovering the plot, so they kidnap her and take her to their hide out.
Now we have to rescue the girl, rescue the town and get the bad guys kind of a movie.  Lots of fights, some poorly staged.  Not a lot of gun play, buy dynamite comes in handy when you are trying to get away.
It seems the horses are always going fast in these shows.  They ride them all out and you wonder if they come through OK.  There was much too little grief for the murdered father.  But everything is right in the end as the Marshall proposes to the girl and taking her to Sacramento with him.