oscaralbert Review of Westward Ho

Westward Ho (1935)

"This picture is dedicated to the Vigilantes . . . "

[7/10 · 4 August 2016]

. . . the New Founding Fathers who "purged" the American West of the "lawlessness" rampant in the mid-1800s due to the influx of murderers and rapists across the Mexican border. This very first "Republic" Picture actually spells out this now-politically incorrect message on-screen as WESTWARD HO opens. The first scene shows Real Life U.S. Vigilante-in-Chief John Wayne (whom director Vincent Sherman has testified would ride up and down Hollywood Boulevard on a motorcycle with his henchman Ward Bond, clubbing members of Tinseltown's LGBTQ community with ball bats, as if these victims were Canadian baby seals, secure in their belief that they'd earn "Hero Buttons" for ridding L.A. of "bad influences") being told by government officials that there was no tax money available to fund Amateur Night Vigilante Attacks. This doesn't deter Wayne's character "John" from rounding up every tenor and white horse in California in a bizarre plot to sing the crooks to death. Unlike these benighted 19th and 20th Century unfortunates, we of the Enlightened 21st Century have History's Greatest Deal-Maker, President-Elect Trump, to force Mexico to build a great protective wall at its own expense which probably will be patrolled by Vigilantes who will shoot first--then sing!