MartinHafer Like a slew of other John Wayne B-westerns shown on the Encore Channel, this one has a 'new and improved' musical track created, I assume, by the Fox Lorber company who distributed it. Frankly, the music is obviously new but not the least bit improved over the normal public domain copies of this film you can download for free. The problems with the music are many. First, the same sound track is used in many of the Wayne films--the exact same music. Second, the music is often dropped into scenes like a sledgehammer with little appreciation of whether or not it's appropriate! Third, being modern electronic music, it's totally inappropriate to the film. Fourth, the music is much louder and hollow-sounding than the rest of the film--and quite distracting.For fans of Westerns, you may or may not recognize Gabby Hayes in this one. Early in his B-movie days, he had not yet solidified his old coot persona--and his beard is absent here. I wasn't surprised, as I've seen him play villains and erudite gentlemen around this same time period--but those familiar with his days as Roy Rogers' sidekick might be surprised by his earlier personas.The starts out horribly. Wayne and Hayes are sitting by fire having a conversation that would never happen in real life. Instead of talking like two normal folks, they do a lengthy exposition where they explain the back story in only a few moments--as if they are reading a script. As I said, no one talks that way--especially when both the characters are supposed to already be familiar with what they are talking about--as it involved them! This is sloppy screen writing at its worst and was a device used to avoid the 'unnecessary' addition of a couple more moments of dialog and action to set the same foundation for the film. And, considering that these Wayne films all were under one hour long, such gimmicks for economy sake weren't that uncommon...but it's still sloppy. And, naturally, you can assume that what follows will all relate to this back story involving the murder of Wayne's father.Soon afterwords, John and Gabby come upon a woman who was accidentally shot a bit earlier. They cart her off to town for medical attention. I loved the next scene where the doctor says that they got her there just in time, as she had a severed artery. There is no way she could have survived this long with such a serious wound (she probably would have died within minutes). And, I loved when the doctor then said the wound wasn't very serious!! Crazy! I would love to know who was the medical consultant for this film....Dr. Hackenbush, perhaps?! Like "Randy Rides Alone" (also John Wayne, 1934), this film soon involves a gang and their efforts to steal land away from a nice young lady and her father. Naturally, the chivalrous Wayne will help girl and in the process catch those who killed his Pa. The only noticeable difference is that, for once, in this film Wayne is dressed in black...a departure from the usual cliché of a hero in white.Along the way, Wayne saves the life of a kid and sees that the kid's father is a bit of a sadistic brute. Naturally, the way to deal with this is to beat the snot out of him--which Wayne does with surprising difficulty considering the guy looked old and a bit pudgy. Wayne remarks that this guy's face is familiar....could it be this guy has a clue as to the identity of the gang who killed Dad?! Gosh! Aside from the black hat and a nearly clean-shaven Hayes, there really are no surprises here. In fact, compared to Wayne's other B-movies, this one is definitely a few notches below them--mostly because of the quality of the script. Sure, I can accept the formulaic aspects of the movie--heck, this is what you expect in a B-western. But everything is telegraphed and presented so poorly--that's why this one is so atrociously written. It's a shame, as with a bit of a re-write, this could have been a lot more watchable--though re-writes was a luxury not usually afforded to Bs.By the way, in addition to the dippy doctor, I also liked when the rancher told Wayne and Hayes that he'd phoned the Sheriff! Such bizarre anachronisms set in the old West were not actually that uncommon in films of the genre. Heck, Gene Autry often had such plot devices in his films--such as chasing the guys on horseback using a pickup truck!!

FightingWesterner John Wayne and George Hayes come back to the place where Wayne spent his childhood in order to find out who killed his father and what became of his baby brother twelve years earlier. Wayne and Hayes then go undercover to stop a group of ranch thieves.There's a few good scenes and a decent climax in this entry in Wayne's Lone Star western series but mostly this is middle of the road entertainment with a bit too much talking and not enough action this time around.However, this does have some better-than-usual acting for the series. Duke and Gabby's performances are also quite likable, as is the actor that played Wayne's young friend.

dougdoepke Pretty tame Lone Star fare, not up to later standards. Nothing much distinguishes this 60 minutes of sagebrush opera. The plot is easy to follow-- Wayne assumes a false identity in order to bring his father's killer to justice. In the process he rescues an old rancher and his daughter from the clutches of a ruthless land grabber and unexpectedly finds a brother. Unfortunately, the locations are nondescript, not much stunt work or hard riding, while the outlaw gang gives up without the usual fight. Also, there's no real personality or color to compensate for the general absence of excitement. Hayes and Canutt too are largely wasted. Perhaps the high point is a lengthy fist-fight that doesn't quite follow the usual formula in outcome. All in all, however, a definitely sub-standard Wayne Western.

JoeytheBrit John Wayne stars as Ted Hayden in this one, lithe young companion of grizzled old George 'Gabby' Hayes, who was just starting to develop into the character now so familiar to Hopalong Cassidy fans. Ted is an orphan, left for dead by the varmints who done fer his paw, and saved from beneath his father's dead body by Hayes' Dusty Rhodes. All this – and much more – is related to the viewer in the opening scene, a conversation between the pair that is nothing but a huge chunk of exposition that is as lacking in subtlety as it is replete with information. Hayden has returned to his hometown to catch the man with the mad laugh who killed his father, and poses as Gat Ganns, all-round bad egg, who bears more than a passing physical resemblance to our hero.This is a fairly acceptable entry in John Wayne's Lone Star series of films made in the early to mid-thirties. There is quite a diverting storyline, even though the acting is as creaky as usual for these flicks. It's the stunts that stand out in all of the low budget efforts Wayne made in those days, and their success is thanks to stuntman extraordinaire Yakima Canutt. You get the impression as you watch that some real hair-raising risks were taken to capture these scenes – and you sometimes wonder whether it was worth it considering the poor quality of most other aspects of the films. Watch out for Canutt standing in for bad guy Lloyd Whitlock, who sports a full head of greying hair, in the fight with Wayne near the end of the film. Canutt had dark hair and a noticeable bald patch, but hack director R. N. Bradbury obviously didn't believe in going to the expense of making even a perfunctory effort to disguise the actors' physical differences. Oddly enough, it's this kind of lack of attention to detail that make the Lone Star films so curiously endearing.