dougdoepke Secret passages, dynamite explosions, lots of hard riding, and the great team of Hayes and Wayne, so what else can a front-row kid turned old geezer ask for. Nothing. The movie's got it all. Okay, the plot's got more crazy twists than a corkscrew and Earl Dwire's Mexican accent is the worst until Larry Storch's Gunfever (1958), but who cares. It's Wayne at his likable peak and Hayes's Gabby is about three-quarters complete. Some great stunts, as expected from a cast that includes maestro Yakima Canutt, along with a leading lady who really can ride (one bad trip-wire stunt, my only complaint). Watch for the unexpected and humorous twist when Wayne takes a short-cut to nail Dwire. Sometimes these programmers can surprise you. I guess kids don't play cowboy anymore. Computers have taken away imaginary play. Too bad. Now, if I were just x years younger, I'd strap on my cap pistol, get my stick horse and join up with the posse. But first I got to get me one of those really big, big hats.

generalusgrant Oh, there are many worse Wayne movies. This movie is edited poorly but it has a campy element that makes watching it enjoyable. The villain is an Anglo actor who sports ridiculous Mexican clothes and affects an over-the-top Mexican accent which is hilarious. The girl is dressed like a Jean Harlow wannabe, this is 1934 after all. At least the location shots are beautiful and enjoyable.Watch it and laugh. Don't expect a serious western, but rather a lightweight and superficial story with poor acting but occasional flashes of camp humor. Wayne is almost ludicrously young and handsome and one can see his acting ability blossomed years after this regrettable venture.

bkoganbing The most die-hard worshippers of John Wayne will cringe when they watch The Lawless Frontier. Even for a poverty row studio, this one is one stinkeroo.Unusual for a western we have a criminal who is a sex crime perpetrator. Earl Dwire plays a halfbreed white and Indian who for reasons that are not explained, pretends he's a Mexican, hokey accent and all. Dwire sounds like the Frito Bandito of advertising fame back in the day.He and his gang happen upon Gabby Hayes and his daughter Sheila Terry. They really don't have anything worth robbing, but Dwire just wants an excuse to kidnap Terry and have his way with her. She hears the dastardly fate she has in store and she and Hayes flee the ranch. Where they happen to meet John Wayne who's on the trail of the bandits. They also run into one very stupid sheriff who believes Wayne is one of the bandits. Again for reasons I can't quite fathom.It was a tough way to earn a living grinding out horse operas like these for the Duke. Fortunately better things were on the way.

classicsoncall Even die hard John Wayne fans will have to concede that this film is a mess. Wayne's character, John Tobin is after the gang that killed his parents, led by half Apache, half white renegade Pandro Zanti (Earl Dwire), posing as a Mexican. There are almost too many silly plot points to count, but those that stand out include Sheriff Williams (Jack Rockwell) cuffing a captured Zanti around his boot, so all Zanti has to do to get free is remove his boot! Tobin's friend Dusty (George pre-Gabby Hayes) takes a thrown knife in the back, and comes back good as new for the rest of the story. In a chase scene, Tobin rides a makeshift log flume through a drainage trough surrounded by log walls in the middle of a desert, and missing his mark, chases (actually walks after) Zanti on foot through the desert. Zanti seeks relief and drinks from a pool of water, but OOPS!, he didn't see the sign above the waterhole that states "Don't Drink Poison". As Zanti collapses dead, Tobin resumes his chase after the remainder of the gang, and captures the whole lot by blowing up a rock wall that seals a secret passage into Dusty's cabin - how convenient.In the closing scene, the new Sheriff Tobin is seen on the phone talking to the new Mrs. Tobin (Sheila Terry), Dusty's daughter Ruby, who earlier in the film was a kidnap target of Zanti's gang. Apparently, the studio was intent on Wayne's getting the girl in virtually every film they made with him, as this type of ending is completely predictable for almost all of Lone Star's films.