Another John Wayne Monogram Lone Star Production, in which the cast is almost the same, the plots variations on evil versus good, the acting perfunctory and the whole shebang put together in a time slightly longer than it takes to read a review of it.
It was filmed in Kernville, some miles north of Bakersfield, a popular place a day's drive from Los Angeles. Kernville is accessible mountainous country often used for Westerns, ambitious or otherwise. The final race between the coach and the Indians in John Ford's "Stagecoach" was shot there.
Like some of Wayne's other inexpensive and hasty Westerns, this was written and directed by Robert Bradbury, the father of one of Wayne's childhood friends, later known as Bob Steele, from his days in Lancaster, California.
There isn't much of substance to the movie. Horses gallop -- Yakima Canut gets prominent screen credit -- and money is mishandled and everyone carries a gun and uses it. It's of interest for fans of John Wayne or the productions of the Poverty Row studios like some people I could name. Well -- one person I could name, anyway, who took the trouble to track down the original location of studios like Monogram and PRC and photograph them as they now are. One was turned into a fast-food chicken restaurant.
It's easy enough to criticize these shabby films but they kept the actors and crew employed during the difficult times of the Great Depression. With no fanfaronade, they filled double-bill slots at the local theaters too. And one must ask one's self if, after all, they were more mindless than some of the crap that now keeps American audiences glued to the television set. Are they really worse than, say, "Oprah", "World's Wildest Police Videos", or rock videos? Aren't they all at or near asymptote?
It was filmed in Kernville, some miles north of Bakersfield, a popular place a day's drive from Los Angeles. Kernville is accessible mountainous country often used for Westerns, ambitious or otherwise. The final race between the coach and the Indians in John Ford's "Stagecoach" was shot there.
Like some of Wayne's other inexpensive and hasty Westerns, this was written and directed by Robert Bradbury, the father of one of Wayne's childhood friends, later known as Bob Steele, from his days in Lancaster, California.
There isn't much of substance to the movie. Horses gallop -- Yakima Canut gets prominent screen credit -- and money is mishandled and everyone carries a gun and uses it. It's of interest for fans of John Wayne or the productions of the Poverty Row studios like some people I could name. Well -- one person I could name, anyway, who took the trouble to track down the original location of studios like Monogram and PRC and photograph them as they now are. One was turned into a fast-food chicken restaurant.
It's easy enough to criticize these shabby films but they kept the actors and crew employed during the difficult times of the Great Depression. With no fanfaronade, they filled double-bill slots at the local theaters too. And one must ask one's self if, after all, they were more mindless than some of the crap that now keeps American audiences glued to the television set. Are they really worse than, say, "Oprah", "World's Wildest Police Videos", or rock videos? Aren't they all at or near asymptote?