Westward Ho (1935) User Reviews

The Unmasked Lone Ranger

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 29 December 2006]

Westward Ho finds the Duke on the trail of as many outlaws as he can kill or capture in search of the gang that killed his parents and kidnapped his young brother.

A prologue to the main film finds the young Wyatt boys on the trail with their parents while they were driving their cattle herd to market. The young Duke is thrown clear from the wagon and thought killed and the brother is taken by outlaw leader Jack Curtis.

When the boy grows up to be John Wayne, he's got himself a mission. In a premise similar to the Lone Ranger, Wayne with official territorial permission organizes his own group of law enforcers called the Vigilantes. So they know each other in a fight with large outlaw bands, Wayne has them dress in black, but ride white horses. The get up isn't for style and Wayne instead of one lone Indian sidekick has forty or so men who have sustained similar family losses.

Of course as things go he does eventually meet up with his grown up brother and the gang that kidnapped him. For what happens you have to watch Westward Ho.

Hardly the best or the worst of Wayne's Poverty Row oaters. In fact Westward Ho has some nice production values because it is shot on location and not on the studio back lot. Unusual for a B western of the Thirties.

Not of course to be missed by the many fans of the legendary Duke.

Early Republic Western worthy of notice.

[rsoonsa · 6/10 · 11 July 2001]

Newborn Republic Pictures utilizes the solid directoral ability of Robert Bradbury, and the presence of John Wayne along with Yakima Canutt and his troupe of stuntriders to produce this strongly scripted film of 1860s vigilante efforts to rid the Far West of outlaw bands that were involved in widespread robbery and cattle rustling. Bradbury, whose skill with Westerns dates back to the early silent period, directs and edits with a solid awareness of suspense, building his typically short scenes with sparse and, at times, stilted dialogue and an eye for proper cast placement which makes excellent use of defined personalities such as Wayne, Frank McGlynn Jr., and Glenn Strange, and gives particular value to the hard-riding stunt performers, who are splendid throughout this well-made (and musical) adventure filmed in California's Owens Valley, at the base of the Sierra Nevada.

Very good B western. Early John Wayne.

[michaelRokeefe · 7/10 · 27 November 2008]

Republic Pictures first production, WESTWARD HO features great locations and photography for the time period. A strong performance from John Wayne, who at this time has been before the camera a little over ten years. John Wyatt(Wayne)vows to avenge the death of his rancher parents at the hands of cattle rustlers. Wyatt leads a group of vigilantes hell bent on finding the gang of outlaws. When the bad guys are rounded up, to Wyatt's surprise one of the bandits is his own long-lost brother Jim(Frank McGlynn Jr.) Its been about 73 years and this picture still holds entertainment value. Although it is a shame to watch the torturous scenes some of the horses went through. The cast also features: Glenn Strange, Jack Curtis, Hank Bell, Sheila Bromley, Jim Farley, Chuck Baldra, Yakima Canutt and Dickie Jones.

Song Of The Vigilante

[FightingWesterner · 7/10 · 12 February 2010]

Separated during an attack on their family's covered wagon, one boy is taken and raised by the murderous bandits, while the other becomes a man (John Wayne) and leads a group of vigilantes against the outlaws and his own brother.

In 1935, the Lone Star unit was sold by Monogram to the fledgling Republic Pictures, who gave producer Paul Malvern a bigger budget to work with and it really shows.

While this has basically the same formula as Wayne's earlier work for Lone Star, the production values are far greater, with some really nice photography, excellent locations, and a nice little stunt-filled finale. It's always good to see Glenn Strange play a good guy too.

Thrown in are some decent songs, including another odd lip-sync performance from the Duke. Also pretty goofy is the dedication at the beginning of the movie, a salute to the vigilantes of the old west!

Breathtaking!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 21 April 2018]

SYNOPSIS: Loner organizes a vigilante group to hunt for his younger brother who was kidnapped by outlaws twelve years previously.

NOTES: Dedicated to the Vigilantes... builders of the New Empire of the West... stern frontiersmen of the days of '49. Men who gave their lives to purge the new frontier of lawlessness.

Republic's first film. Negative cost: a mere $37,000. However, that is largesse indeed compared to the sixteen Lone Star westerns, which were brought in at no more than $11,000 a-piece. More than three times the Lone Star budget here, and all that extra money is right up there on the screen.

COMMENT: Despite some oddities (Wayne serenading the heroine with a dubbed basso profundo) and technical shortcomings (jerky continuity, tacky indoor sets, primitive sound recording), this is not only one of the best of Wayne's pre-superstar westerns, but a worthwhile addition to any permanent collection in its own right.

The locations are truly breathtaking. Bradbury is a director (and Stout a photographer) who knows how to get both the dramatic and pictorial best out of them. The movie is full of sweeping images (the outlaw band, lined up across the frame, silhouetted vividly against sky and sand; the black-shirted singing riders, all mounted on white horses, encircling the renegades on a boulder-strewn mountainside) and no expense has been spared in staging the many action highlights, with lots of thrilling stuntwork, falls and running inserts.

This is not a movie that saves all its action for the final reel either. In fact, if one has any complaint against the film, it's so full of action, there's little chance for the heroine. Never mind, Wayne acquits himself nobly, and there's an excellent performance from Frank McGlynn Jr as the outlaw brother. The villains, led by Curtis and Canutt are appropriately nasty.

One critic has complained recently that the action scenes are undermined by the lack of background music. I didn't find this a problem. There is music in the film - under montages - plus no less than three songs (including the title number which is rendered no less than three times).

By the humble standards of the "B" western, production values are outstanding.

Vengeance oater drags, but it is action-packed

[shakercoola · 4/10 · 17 May 2022]

An American Western; A story about a boy who saw his parents murdered and younger brother kidnapped by a gang of cattle thiefs and bandits. Years later, after forming a vigilante group, he sets out to find his long-lost brother. This is a low-budget B-movie with its inherent low production values showing. It has a simple, straightforward, serviceable plot but it keeps up the tension on a main note of mystery. John Wayne plays the grown-up crusader and leader of cowboys with a penchant for a singalong. The editing was clumsy which made the verbal exchanges in many of the scenes awkward but it is directed competently otherwise and it has some good location photography.

"Them fellas seem to be in a mighty big hurry!"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 16 August 2008]

When new Republic Pictures was formed in 1935, they brought over a lot of talent from Lone Star Productions, including producers Trem Carr and Paul Malvern, director Robert North Bradbury, and box office draw John Wayne. All were involved in "Westward Ho", their first picture featuring 'The Duke'. Curiously, whether by accident or design, John Wayne's character goes by the name of John Wyatt, the same name he had in "Paradise Canyon", the final release from Lone Star.

You can notice the improved production values and generally better story quality with Republic, even if the picture offers one of your standard brothers separated during youth tales. In this case, John Wyatt's family is ambushed by cattle rustlers in an opening scene, and younger brother Jim is taken by the gang, who's leader Whit Ballard (Jack Curtis) considers him feisty. Jim grows up an outlaw, while John, with the passing of years, is determined to find and get revenge on the bad guys who killed his parents. The young Jim was played by Dickie Jones, who grew up playing a whole host of cowboy and sidekick roles, and was probably the best stunt rider I've ever seen while backing up Jock Mahoney's 'Range Rider' in the 1950's.

Probably the most unique feature of "Westward Ho" has to do with the idea of identifying John Wyatt's band of Vigilantes decked out in black shirts, white scarves and all riding white horses. My first thought was where did they ever get all those white horses from. They're an impressive sight, particularly when all lined up and ready to confront the bad guys. I had to stop and consider also how the term 'Vigilantes' seemed to carry a positive connotation in this story, unlike the more accepted definition one is used to. These vigilantes operated right out in the open and under the umbrella of the law, and most of the time made it look just a little bit too easy capturing the bad guys.

One scene that will jump right out at you is when John Wayne's character serenades Sheila Mannors, more than obviously dubbed in a much deeper voice than Wayne's. It's not the first time Wayne is shown performing a song, it happened way back in his very first Lone Star picture, "Riders of Destiny". In fact, his character in that one was 'Singin' Sandy Saunders. Wayne was dubbed by a small handful of extras on the set, but you have to take your pick by film, as the guys weren't credited back then. In this one, the most probable suspect would have been Jack Kirk, who's in the cast as an uncredited Singing Rider. Director Bradbury's son Bill was the voice in 'Riders', who used the money he earned to help put himself through medical school.

Oh yes, and I can't forget to mention Yakima Canutt, a regular in John Wayne's pictures, sometimes as a sidekick and sometimes as a heavy. In this one, he's one of Ballard's henchmen simply named Red, and I believe it's the only time I've ever seen him with a mustache. Probably to underscore the passing of years from the movie's opening scene to a span of some seventeen years later. Canutt's polished stunt work is evident throughout the story, especially in the old rope across the trail trick that takes out four of the bad guy posse. I still wince whenever I see one of those stunts, never knowing if any of the horses (or men) ever came out of the scene with a permanent injury.

Here's something curious - why was it that when Ballard's gang held up the bank, the ruckus didn't start until they started riding away with guns blazing? They didn't shoot things up while robbing the bank, so why draw attention for the getaway? Something to think about.

Anyway, if you're a fan of John Wayne, this one's not bad, offering a somewhat more mature and solidly built looking actor, even if it's only a couple of years beyond his starring roles for Lone Star. The finale of course by now is pretty standard, Wayne gets to hook up with his female co-star, and with Republic, he even gets to kiss her to close out the story!

Brother vs brother as the Duke leads a gang of vigilantes.

[opsbooks · 5/10 · 24 April 2003]

Brother versus brother as the Duke leads a gang of white-horse-mounted vigilantes out to destroy every bad guy in the state. His parents murdered by a gang of cattle thieves, his brother taken and raised by the gang, John/the Duke sets out to locate the gang a decade after the event. Exciting action scenes which make up for stilted dialogue, especially from Mary MacLaren as John's Ma. As the row of good guys, black hats and black shirts on their white chargers, thunder across the screen, my thoughts hark back to the days of 17-inch black and white TV sets. In Australia this comes packaged on a cheap DVD with 'Flying Tigers' and 'Hell Town'. The DVD has excellent sound but generally below average picture quality!

"I always wanted to be a badman, even when we were kids,remember" Jim

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 22 June 2018]

Republic's first film(61 min.) is said to be dedicated to the Vigilantes: "builders of the new empire of the West". That's a mighty strong statement in favor of vigilantes, who are usually regarded as usurpers of the law, usually because they feel that working through the legal system is too slow, expensive and unsure, or too sparsely present, too corrupt, or too prejudiced. I'll return to this subject later........The prelude has a very small wagon train crossing a desert. They are driving a cattle herd, which is the object of desire for an outlaw gang that descends upon them, killing all except two half-grown brothers: John and Jim Wyatt. Jim(Frank McGlynn) is kidnapped, while John(John Wayne) inexplicably is missed in the burning of the wagons. .....We then skip about 10 years to when John is a full grown man, as should be his brother, if he is alive. John has a burning desire to find the gang that killed his parents and extract revenge, and to find his brother, who may still be with this gang. Toward this end, John proposes to a committee of territorial brass, that a group of vigilantes be established to aid in the extermination of outlaws and outlaw gangs. They approve the idea, but plead there is no money to finance such. John says he will find a way to finance the establishment of such. He rides around to various cabins, asking for volunteers, collecting a substantial group(played by the Singing Riders) who supply their own firearms, a white horse, a black shirt, and a white kerchief, as their 'uniform'. These are all single men, since their mission is dangerous. How they supported themselves is not considered. They make some progress in destroying several gangs(not shown), presumably by engaging them in combat and capturing those not killed, to be turned over to legal authorities. Next, they engage Ballard's(Jack Curtis) gang. Ballard is a plump middle-aged man, who is mostly desk-bound. Eventually, they find out that he was the likely leader of the gang that killed John's parents. In fact, later, Ballard realizes that vigilante John and the Jim in his band are the two brothers from that attack. Mary Gordon, who has gotten friendly with John, overhears this when she is locked in Ballard's closet. I will leave the story of how the brothers met, and the nature of Ballard's demise for your viewing(A good copy is available at YouTube). The film includes some singing. The theme song "Westward Ho" is sung 3 times by The Singing Riders. Fortunately, It's quite a nice song. They also sing "The Vigilantes". Glenn Strange dubbed Wayne's supposed singing of "The Girl I Loved Long Ago" to Mary.......This was mostly a location shoot, in and around the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine, in Owens Valley. The High Sierras, just to the west, are often seen in the background. .......Returning to the subject of vigilantism or something closely resembling it which is present in many westerns, yet is generally frowned upon by the legal establishment. However, there are cases, such as the one in this film, where the legal establishment approves of the actions of a vigilante group or person. A famous historical example is the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, active at times during the early years of the gold rush, when crime was rampant and the population exploding so fast that official law enforcement couldn't keep up with it. Vigilantism may or may not include some summary executions or other punishments of captured villains, or may involve property destruction as a form of vengeance. In summary, depending on the particulars of the situation and the scope of the handling of the captured, vigilantism may sometimes be the best way to deal with a crime situation.

You've gotta see this one...

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 5 January 2011]

This is a pretty run of the mill John Wayne B-western of the 1930s with one major exception. Like his few 'Singing Sandy' films Wayne made during this era, the producers of this movie decided to make Wayne a singer---even though his singing voice was apparently rather scary. So, they dubbed him with a singer a bazillion octaves lower than Wayne's real voice--and the result is absolutely hilarious.

As for the rest of the film, it had a moderately interesting plot. It begins years earlier and Wayne is a young boy going across the prairie in a wagon with his pioneer family. The group is attacked by bandits and the adults are all killed. Wayne is assumed dead and his younger brother is adopted by the bandits. Now, years later, Wayne still is searching for his lost brother as well as heading a crusade of SINGING vigilantes on their quest to rid the west of gangs of thieves. Naturally, being a movie, eventually Wayne and his long-lost brother end up on opposite sides--neither knowing the identity of the other.

While the plot is silly, it was enjoyable and pretty typical in style to the bazillion Bs Wayne made through the 1930s. Fast-paced, enjoyable and entertaining.

Some great equestrian action sequences, but at what cost.

[Chuck-213 · 7 October 2007]

This wonderful example of the early B western is tarnished by some pitiable horse falls that would not be tolerated in today's films. Two scenes in particular show the poor animals somersaulting and going down in a horrendous heap, sometimes on top of one another. Even knowing that the movie is over 70 years old; the sight of the poor animals in such distress still made me heart sick. The Running W appears to have been used liberally in this picture, which is otherwise well acted and produced. John Wayne gives an excellent performance along with a strong supporting cast, while the Owens Valley and Alabama Hills outside Lone Pine provide a realistic backdrop to the story.

Duke kickstarts Republic with tremendous success

[hines-2000 · 10/10 · 20 July 2020]

Great direction by Robert Bradbury with legendary Duke and Yak with his great troupe of stuntmen. An interesting prologue of the young Wyatt boys being separated after their parents were killed. Dickie Jones, aka Buffalo Bill Jr, Glenn Strange, Jack Curtis, and Sheila Bromley give outstanding performances. Frank McGlynn Jr., who left us too soon gives an impassioned performance as the brother on the wrong side of the law. In the first Republic film there's none of what would become John Wayne's trademark idiolect, nonetheless he performs to perfection with a terrific cast.

Review

[tomwal · 6/10 · 28 March 2017]

A debut western for John Wayne , enhanced by Olive films in 2012 with a new digital transfer. Lensed by Archie Stout on location, this western tells the story of two brothers, Wayne and Frank McGynne. Their parents are killed . One brother Mcgynne is taken by outlaws and Wayne grows up hoping to avenge the death of his parents and locate his lost brother. He forms a vigilante group and the story proceeds from there.Never dull, there are good performances from all involved. Well worth a view and a ****** out of 10 star rating.

John Wayne....and a cast of thousands!

[bsmith5552 · 5/10 · 7 August 2014]

When Republic Pictures was formed in 1935,Trem Carr's Lone Star western group was included along with star John Wayne. Thus began Wayne's turbulent relationship with the studio which lasted until 1951.

The first thing that you will notice when watching "westward Ho!" for the first time is the large cast of extras particularly in the riding scenes (the veritable cast of thousands). Quite a feat for the newly formed "B" studio considering that the Great Depression was still ongoing.

Anyway, the plot in that oft used good brother vs. bad brother theme. John an d Jim Wyatt are part of a wagon train that is ambushed by rustler Ballard (Jack Curtis)and his gang, which includes veteran stuntman/actor Yakima Canutt. The boys parents are killed and John is left for dead while brother Jim is "adopted" by Ballard.

Fast forward a few years and John Wyatt has grown up to be John Wayne and Jim, Frank McGlynn Jr. Jim has become an outlaw within Ballard's gang. John meanwhile has organized a vigilante group known as "The Singing Riders" to track down all outlaw gangs as he searches for his lost brother.

Along the way, John joins up with Lafe Gordon's (Jim Farley)cattle drive in the hopes of catching Ballard and Co. Well, as luck would have it, Gordon has a comely young daughter Mary (Sheila Mannors) with whom John strikes up a relationship. To complicate matters, Jim also joins Gordon's group unbeknownst that his brother John is there. Finally the brothers discover who each of them is and..............................

John Wayne had previously portrayed "Singin' Sandy) in a couple of his Lone Star westerns. So as the leader of the "Singing Riders" he gets to sing (dubbed of course) a forgettable tune to the heroine. A singing cowboy John Wayne was not.

The film is enhanced by the presence of Yakima Canutt who staged many of the film's stunts including several horse falls and a spectacular "wagon over the cliff" scene. Considering the large cast of riders, this could not have been no easy task.

Other recognizable faces in the cast were Glenn Strange, Earl Dwire (who had appeared in several of Wayne's "Lone Stars") and Lloyd Ingraham.

Worth a look.

First Republic Pictures Movie Produced and First Revisionist Western

[springfieldrental · 7/10 · 8 June 2023]

Once they were pigeonholed in low-budgeted Grade-B films, actors found it difficult to get into major studios' higher priced productions. Even the now famous John Wayne discovered that painful fact early in his career as year after year passed by and no major offers came from the 'Big Eight' Hollywood studios. Appearing in as many as nine movies a year, Wayne was as busy as any actor on the screen. Typical of the many Westerns he appeared in during that time was August 1935's "Westward Ho." What sets this film apart from his others was it was the first movie produced by Hollywood's newest studio, Republic Pictures.

Ever since his ill-fated lead role in Raoul Walsh's big-budgeted 1930 epic "The Big Trail," Wayne was relegated to either tiny parts in major feature films or starred in Poverty Row films. Small studios such as Monogram Pictures loved his reasonable salary, his large physique and his Western-style mannerisms. In the stretch between 1930 and 1939 Wayne played in over 80 so-called 'horse operas.' The frequency appearing before the camera refined his acting skills, making him more polished with his every movie. Wayne also became adept at riding horses and in his stunt work, especially in his fist fighting. He was tutored by stuntman Yakima Canutt, a pioneer in making knuckle confrontations more realistic before the camera--yet insuring the safety of the actors. Wayne developed a style unique in cinema at the time; he's not only shown throwing punches with his patented wide swings, but he used every known tactic to fight the bad guys. "Before I came along, it was standard practice that the hero must always fight clean," Wayne said. "The heavy was allowed to hit the hero in the head with a chair or throw a kerosene lamp at him or kick him in the stomach, but the hero could only knock the villain down politely and then wait until he rose. I changed all that. I threw chairs and lamps. I fought hard and I fought dirty. I fought to win." In "Westward Ho," a gang of outlaws come across a small wagon train with a herd of cattle. The cow wrestlers kill its members and steal the livestock. One youngster, Jim (Frank McGlynn, Jr. As an adult) is kidnapped while his brother John (Wayne as an adult), is left for dead-but survives. As he grows into adulthood, John vows vengeance on those killers, while unbeknownst to him his brother Jim becomes part of the gang. The movie has been cited by some as cinema's earliest revisionist Western where the actions of John crosses the line employing dirty tactics in the name of seeking revenge.

Hollywood's landscape was dotted with a number of struggling independent film companies scratching out a living producing low-budget movies. Film lab owner Herbert Yates, an original investor in 20th Century Pictures, had a number of small studios in debt to his company from processing their film. Yates came up with the idea of merging six of these indebted studios into one larger company. He encouraged the consolidation by threatening them to immediately pay their bills. Most agreed, and the new studio became Republic Pictures. Those that merged included Monogram Pictures, which produced Wayne's westerns and possessed a nationwide distribution system Yates could use. Mascot Pictures Corp. Was the most sophisticated studio of the bunch, owning Mack Sennett's former facilities in Studio City as well as having Gene Autry under contract. Majestic Pictures, Liberty Pictures and Chesterfield Pictures rounded out the remaining studios joining Republic.

Through the years, Republic Pictures competed with the big boys, not only locking in contracts with the likes of Wayne, Autry and Roy Rogers, but produced bigger budgeted movies such as 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima," 1952's "The Quiet Man," and 1954's "Johnny Guitar."

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

[oscaralbert · 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!

bad screenplay, pretentious settings and arrangements

[rightwingisevil · 9 May 2013]

first, we got people singing a song like watching a play on a stage. then the funny things showed up one by one. by watching this 1935 film i was unable not to think about what the hongkong shaw brothers did to their Chinese kung-fu movies, always with stupid screenplays, weird attires, costumes, hairdos, make-up, terrible acting... pretentious and unrealistic dialog.....all of those horrible arrangements shown in shaw brothers kung fu movies were accidentally matched this pathetic western genre b movie. all the people in this pioneering westward movie wore nice, clean and ironed costumes, even in gunfights, good guys led by john wayne were riding on white horses, wearing white shirts, while the bad guys' horses were just a mixture of different colors. there were so many laughable and pretentious scenes and dialog in this horrible film.

"Did you ever ride the Buckhorn Trail?"

[utgard14 · 4/10 · 7 September 2017]

Cheapie western starring John Wayne as a cowboy who forms a group of singing vigilantes, slinging bullets and ballads across the West. Meanwhile his long-lost brother has saddled up with the wrong crowd. Nonsense from start to finish, and sadly never as much fun as the plot description makes it sound. It's dullsville. And don't even get me started on that ending! What was the point of the brother plot if it was going to end like that?

A great Western for the 30's parameters!

[guisreis · 7/10 · 12 May 2020]

It is not a special film, but it is amusing and, considering a so early Western, it is perhaps the best movie of this genre until the end of the 30's (if you do not include among Westerns Chaplin's Gold Rush and The Pilgrim and Harrol Lloyd's An Eastern Westerner). There are good Wersterns in the 40's (The ox-bow incident and The red river), but not in the 30's (personally, I do not like Stagecoach, and perhaps only The Plainsman is in the same level among the Westerns I have watched from the same decade). An entertaining Western with a coherent story and with no apology to murdering "those evil savages" was not something common in cinema those days. So, there is a great merit here.