Angel and the BadmanOne of
John Wayne's most mystical films, Angel and the Badman is also the first production that
Wayne personally produced. The star plays a wounded outlaw who is sheltered by a Quaker family. Attracted to the family's angelic daughter
Gail Russell, the hard-bitten
Wayne undergoes a slow and subtle character transformation; still, he is obsessed with killing the man (
Bruce Cabot) who murdered his foster father. The storyline traces not only the regeneration of
Wayne, but of the single-minded sheriff (
Harry Carey) who'd previously been determined to bring
Wayne to justice. Not a big hit in 1947, Angel and the Badman has since become the most frequently telecast of
John Wayne's Republic films, thanks to its lapse into Public Domain status in 1974. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Star PackerDefinitely the most expensive-looking of
John Wayne's "Lone Star" westerns, The Star Packer casts "the Duke" as U.S. marshal John Travers. Hoping to flush out a mysterious outlaw chieftain known only as "The Shadow," Travers becomes sheriff of a town where several unsolved murders have occurred. Accompanied by his Indian pal Yak (
Yakima Canutt), our hero explores a tunnel leading from the sheriff's office to the outlaws' cave hideout. He manages to ascertain the identity of The Shadow, but first he must rescue heroine Anita (
Verna Hillie) from the villain's clutches. As much a horror melodrama as a straightforward western, The Star Packer benefits from the casting of Lone Star "regulars" George (Gabby) Hayes and
Yakima Canutt in highly uncharacteristic roles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Blue SteelJohn Wayne once again goes undercover to catch a wanted outlaw in this average entry in his 1934-1935 Western series for Monogram Pictures.
Wayne plays John Carruthers, a U.S. marshal, and his quarry is the Polka Dot Bandit, aka Danti (
Yakima Canutt), who has taken off with a 4,000-dollar pay roll. As John soon learns, Danti is in the employ of Malgrove (
Edward Peil Sr.), a supposedly upstanding citizen who is secretly trying to starve the good people of Yucca City. Unbeknownst to the townsfolk, a valuable ore runs right through the area and Malgrove is plotting to buy the land on the cheap. Blue Steel was produced at Hollywood's General Service Studios with exteriors filmed at Big Pine, CA. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
The Lucky TexanThe third entry in John Wayne's superior Lone Star series for producer Paul Malvern, The Lucky Texan features Wayne as Jerry Mason, a young college graduate who, along with old family friend Jake Benson (George Hayes), locates a secret gold field. Returning to town with their gold, the two friends make the mistake of trusting the local assayer (Lloyd Whitlock) and his equally crooked partner (Yakima Canutt). The villains take a shot at Jake and, believing they killed the old coot, blame young Jerry for the "murder." At his trial, Jerry is delighted to discover his "victim" among the spectators, dressed in a costume formerly used in a local presentation of Charley's Aunt. Usually playing villains in the Lone Star Westerns, George Hayes got an opportunity to practice his later popular Gabby character in this entry. The Lucky Texan also featured several fine examples of director Robert North Bradbury's famous "swish-pan" method, in which characters are brought from one place to another as the camera sweeps over the landscape in a blur. As always, Yakima Canutt doubled both Wayne, Hayes, and several of the villains. In fact, Canutt got to virtually chase himself in a gasoline-powered handcar in the film's exciting finale. In addition to Wayne, Hayes, Canutt, and Whitlock, the Malvern stock company players did their usual fine work, including Earl Dwire as an elderly sheriff, stunt man Ed Parker as the sheriff's crooked son, and Gordon de Main as the local banker. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
The Desert TrailJohn Wayne's easy-going charm truly began to manifest itself in this, one of his later "Lone Star" Westerns for Monogram. Falsely accused of killing the paymaster (
Henry Hall) of the Rattlesnake Gulch rodeo, John Scott (Wayne) and his girl-chasing partner Kansas Charlie (
Eddy Chandler) trail the real killer, Pete (
Al Ferguson), and his unwilling underling Jim (
Paul Fix) to Poker City. Jim wants to go straight, but Pete blackmails him into robbing the stagecoach. John and Kansas, who are known in town as Jones and the Reverend Smith, are once again accused of the crime, but Jim helps them escape from jail. When the young bandit refuses to commit bank robbery, Pete shoots him in cold blood. The villain is caught by John and Kansas, whom Jim has cleared of all crimes on his deathbed. Besides one of Wayne's better early performances, The Desert Trail -- whose title bears no close scrutiny -- also benefitted from the presence of
Frank Capra-regular
Eddy Chandler, a rotund comic actor whose sparring here with Wayne is first-rate all the way.
Paul Fix is equally good as the outlaw with a conscience and
Mary Kornman, of Our Gang fame, is tolerable as the obligatory heroine. The Desert Trail was directed with easy assurance by the veteran
Lewis D. Collins, who for some reason billed himself "Cullin Lewis." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
McLintock!George Washington McLintock (
John Wayne) has a saddlebag full of trouble. The owner of the largest ranch in the territory, which also includes a mine and a lumber mill that he built up himself, should be a happy, fulfilled man, but he isn't. His wife, Katherine (Maureen O'Hara), walked out on him two years ago without a word of explanation and has been living back east and running in very fancy circles. He's getting older, a fact of which he's constantly reminded as friends around him decline in health. He's being challenged by their sons, eager to make their mark on the territory, and by the homesteaders who are pouring in with the support of the government, hoping to farm on land that's just barely adequate for cattle to graze on; he's got government officials underfoot, including an inept Indian agent (
Strother Martin) and a corrupt land agent (
Gordon Jones); the thick-headed, longwinded territorial governor, the honorable Cuthbert H. Humphrey (
Robert Lowery), and the government back east are trying to push the Indians -- whose chiefs are some of McLintock's oldest enemies and his best and most honored friends -- by shipping them off to a reservation, where they'll be cared for like old women; and to top it all off, Katherine is coming back to secure a divorce and take custody of their 17-year-old daughter, Rebecca (
Stefanie Powers), who's been at school back east and no longer likes anything to do with the West, any more than her mother does. All of that -- plus the presence of a young hired hand (
Patrick Wayne) who's interested romantically in McLintock's daughter -- is the setup for a sprawling comedy Western with serious overtones, part battle-of-the-sexes and part political tract.
McLintock! was made mostly to keep
John Wayne's production company solvent in the wake of the losses incurred from the production of The Alamo.
Wayne needed a film that could be made quickly and have mass appeal, and he got more than he bargained for in
James Edward Grant's screenplay, which owed a little to both The Taming of the Shrew and The Quiet Man. Shot in the spring of 1963 and premiered in late November of that year, McLintock! proved to be one of the star's most popular and successful films of the '60s. It was a prized possession of the
Wayne estate and was held unavailable for all of the '80s and beyond until they missed the copyright renewal in 1991 -- after that, it emerged in numerous substandard videocassette and DVD editions. There was an authorized VHS edition from MPI in the early '90s, and there were legitimate showings on WTBS, but until 2005 there was no decent quality DVD version. Late that year, Paramount Home Video, working under license from the
Wayne estate, released a beautiful letterboxed DVD edition loaded up with extras. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
The Dawn RiderAn average entry in the otherwise above-average Monogram/"Lone Star" Western series starring
John Wayne, this film is noteworthy for containing one of the last screen appearances of
Joseph De Grasse, a major silent screen actor-director, who -- with his screenwriter wife
Ida May Park -- created scores of well-received Universal melodramas in the 1910s.
De Grasse appears all too briefly here as
Wayne's father, murdered during a robbery of his express office.
Wayne, playing John Mason, chases after the killer, an outlaw whose face is hidden behind a polka dot neckerchief. Mason is injured during the chase and brought to the home of Alice Gordon (
Marion Burns) by newfound friend Ben McClure (
Reed Howes). Nursed back to health by Alice, with whom he is falling in love, Mason sets a trap for the killer and his gang by announcing that he is guarding a valuable gold shipment. The killer is revealed to be Rudd, Alice's brother (
Dennis Moore, here billed "Denny Meadow"), whom John challenges to a duel. Feeling betrayed by Mason's love for Alice, Ben secretly substitutes the bullets in his former friend's gun with blanks. Persuaded by Alice that John has done nothing untoward, a repentant Ben arrives just in time to save his friend from certain death but is himself felled by a bullet fired by villainous barkeep
Yakima Canutt in a final, well-staged, shootout. What there is of comic relief in this rather dour Western is provided by gangly
Nelson McDowell, an actor seemingly born to portray comic undertakers, which is exactly what he plays here. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Texas TerrorWith a 45-minute running time, or thereabouts, Texas Terror was
John Wayne's shortest Lone Star/Monogram Western and far from his best. Believing has accidentally killed his best friend (
Frank Ball), the sheriff (
Wayne) hands over his badge to George "Gabby" Hayes and retreats to the high country. En route to take over her murdered father's ranch, Beth Matthews (
Lucille Browne) is witness to a stage robbery (a typical modern Western, the "stage" in Texas Terror is a Ford T touring car). An unshaven, dirty-looking
Wayne comes to her rescue, but she thinks he is part of the gang. Vaguely recognizing his voice but nothing else, Beth later hires the now cleaned-up former sheriff as her new foreman and they quickly fall in love. But during a dance, Joe Dickson (
LeRoy Mason), the incognito leader of the stage robbers, informs the girl that
Wayne is the man thought to have killed her father.
Wayne soon learns of Dickson's own culpability in the killing and summons an entire tribe of Indians to help capture him. The typical Hollywood Indians in this film all speak in broken English, Chief Black Eagle actually saying "Ugh!" on one occasion, an incongruous moment in a Western where the heroine arrives in an automobile. Intentional comedy relief is provided by
Fern Emmett, a sort of poor man's
Margaret Hamilton, and veteran slapstick comedian
Jack Duffy, both of whom engage in a supposedly hilarious milking contest. The climactic chase sequence is rather heavily padded with stock footage from the silent era and
Yakima Canutt is spotted quite clearly doubling for
Wayne. As always, veteran director
Robert North Bradbury has a great eye for composition (the film seems to have been shot on locations in the Sierras), but his handling of actors leaves much to be desired. Tight-lipped
LeRoy Mason delivers Texas Terror's only solid performance as the villain. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Riders of DestinyIn the first of his 16 Westerns for Monogram, John Wayne plays Singin' Sandy Saunders, a drifter who witnesses what he at first believes to be a stage robbery. In reality, the "road agent" is a girl, Fay Denton (Cecilia Parker), and she is "stealing" her own money in order to prevent a phony stage holdup further down the road. As Fay's father, Charlie "Dad" Denton (George Hayes), explains, the culprit behind a rash of pretend stage holdups committed by two bumbling drivers (Al St. John and Heinie Conklin) is James Kincaid (Forrest Taylor), who is also forcing the local farmers off their lands by demanding an outrageous price for his water. When Sandy appears on the horizon, Kincaid engages a notorious gunman, Slip Morgan (
Earl Dwire), but Sandy disarms the bandit for good by shooting him through both wrists. Much to Fay's disgust, Kincaid quickly hires the newcomer, now known as "the most notorious outlaw since Billy the Kid," and Saunders suggests that they dynamite Dad Denton's well, the only other available source of water in the area. It is all a ruse, of course, and Sandy soon reveals himself to be a government agent in disguise. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
West of the DivideAssigned to write and direct the
John Wayne western West of the Divide,
Robert N. Bradbury dug out the plotline he'd used so often and to such good effect in his son
Bob Steele's vehicles. Wayne plays frontiersman Ted Hayden, who spends most of the picture searching for the man who killed his parents. Along the way, he "tames" spoiled heroine Fay Winter (
Virginia Brown Faire) and rediscovers his long-lost brother Spud (Billy O'Brien).
John Wayne's fistfights with chief heavy
Yakima Canutt aren't in the same league as his later Canutt-supervised stunt sequences, but they're pretty good by their own standards. West of the Divide was the fourth entry in Wayne's "Lone Star" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide