Rating of
1.5/4
Not one of "The Duke's" best
The M.O.W. - wrote on 05/12/10
"John Tobin" (John Wayne) is on the hunt of the killer of his father (Earl Dwire), who kidnaps a young woman (Sheila Terry). Now, John has to save the young woman, while trying to prove he is not a member of the outlaw's gang to the bumbling sheriff, who also accuses him for killing the girl's father.
This is one of the worst 1930's movies I've seen. I spent more time looking away from my computer screen than watching the actual movie.
The first problem is the length of the film. It completely rushed the story, which was hard to follow at times. It also gave no chance of the characters to develop.
Everybody in the cast seemed to have been forced together, and did not get the chance to develop any chemistry.
A good chunk of this movie deals with "Tobin" chasing the villain. In fact, a good chunk of the entire 50 minutes was a horse chase. The villain was horrible, and I did not feel any hate toward him. I didn't even believe his accent.
Surprisingly, Wayne was not good in this movie. I believe this was early in his career, and it showed. He was not leading man material in this one. He didn't even have chemistry with any of the other performers.
Due to the age of this film, the audio was not great. It made the dialog nearly impossible to hear at times. There were times that you couldn't understand anything that was said. You also had the source of the sound go to almost a whisper as it moved away from the microphone.
If you are a John Wayne fan, check this out if you see it on the Westerns channel, but only if there is nothing else on.