AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

ma-cortes Jerry Mason (John Wayne) is a tough Eastner who goes West and meets Jake Benson (George Gaby Hayes who bears the comic relief , as usual), an old rancher, become partners and strike it rich with a gold mine. The Young Texan and the old man then find their lives complicated by bad guys and a woman . The prospectors securing their gold discovery against mean villains . They find a mine and are successful, but when Jake sells some gold and after depositing the cash he is detained for the attempted murder of banker Williams . Meanwhile , Betty (Barbara Sheldon) arrives to live with Jake, but before she learns of his whereabouts , Jerry locates the guilty bunch and Jake is freed . But the nasty outlaws seek vengeance . The picture gets thrills , Western action , shootouts , a love story , and several fights between Wayne and his enemies ; being quite entertaining . It's a low budget film with good actors , technicians, mediocre production values , pleasing results and usually regarded as one of the best Westerns made by John Wayne during his ¨Lone Star¨ period . The picture packs brawls and fights in silent cinema style and a final pursuit in Keystone wake . Nice acting by John Wayne as a young Texan who finds himself involved with claim jumpers , miners and ambitious guys . Very early Wayne has the Duke looking awfully young as cowboy securing his gold . Sympathetic performance from veteran George ¨Gaby¨ Hayes as short-tempered person , Gaby steals the show as when he get dressed in woman clothes and gives a special spectacle in court . Mediocre cinematography by Archie Stout , a notorious cameraman with a long career . Being necessary an alright remastering because of the film-copy is washed-out . The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film . Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely and usually badly edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duplicated from second- or third-generation or more copies of the film . The motion picture was professionally directed by Robert North Bradbury who made various early John Wayne vehicles .John Wayne played a great role in the super-production ¨The big trail¨(1930) but he subsequently fell in B series during the thirties . Most of them in ¨Lone Star¨ productions , usually directed by Robert N. Bradbury , such as : ¨Rough romance¨, ¨The range feud¨, ¨Texas cyclone¨, ¨Two-fisted law¨, ¨Ride him cowboy¨, ¨Big stampede¨, ¨Haunted gold¨ , ¨The telegraph law¨, ¨Somewhere in Sonora¨ , ¨The man from Utah¨ , The man from Monterrey¨, ¨The lawless frontier¨ , ¨West of the divide¨, Rainbow Valley¨ , The desert trail¨ , The dawn rider¨, ¨Lawless range¨, The Oregon Trail¨ , and ¨Born in the west¨ . In 1938 he participated in Republic series with ¨The three musketeers¨ replacing Robert Livingston and in which George Sherman directed 8 films . Later on , Wayne starred the hit ¨The stagecoach¨ by John Ford and took part in ¨A movies¨ such as¨: ¨Allegheny uprising¨, ¨Dark command¨, ¨The spoilers¨, ¨In old California¨, ¨War of the wildcats¨, ¨Tall in the saddle¨, ¨Flame of the Barbary Coast¨ and ¨Dakota¨ . And financed his first production : ¨Angel and the badman¨ . Subsequently , with ¨Red River¨ John rose at top box-office and after that , he starred many successes .

jfarms1956 The Lucky Texan will appeal most to baby-boomers. This should be my type of movie. However, young John Wayne does not appeal to me in this western. I like westerns. This would have satisfied me as a child growing up. Now, the westerns are more sophisticated in almost all aspects. The movie to me was almost comedic. I do like Gabby Hayes in the movie. He did remind me of me being a child watching these types of westerns. It is thankfully short. So, if you have an afternoon and want to watch a bit of nostalgia, then bring on the popcorn. Otherwise, I found most of the acting lacking and the script boring. The Lucky Texan is worth watching to see how much growth John Wayne did as an actor. I thought Stagecoach was better. Enjoy.

weezeralfalfa My title is meant to emphasize the silent era-like features of this and many other early sound westerns. If you are used to silent films, this shouldn't bother you that much. The villains often have the exaggerated look of many silent film counterparts. The brawls, horse chases and stunts also often have the exaggerated and amateurish look of many silent films. The filming technique also often looks relatively crude, like the cheaper silent films. People apparently shot dead often conveniently resurrect later with just a head graze(The 2 apparent murders in this film turn out this way). All those highly unlikely coincidences that make the story turn out right have a silent era feel to them. Thus, some of the scenes could almost be pulled from a silent era film. This includes Wayne's(actually stunt man Yakima Canutt's) long skid sitting on a convenient tree limb, through a long large sluice tunnel. This tunnel just happened to begin where he tumbled down a long hill after missing on an attempted rider tackle, and just happened to end up where he could make another tackle attempt from a tree. We can imagine Charlie Chhaplin or Buster Keaton doing the same thing in a slightly different context. Another comedic scene was the chase via Model T and horse of the badies escaping on a motorized rail utility car. The model T and railcar finally collide after a passed up opportunity.. In the finale, the frustrated photographer stalks off, stepping high in Charlie Chaplin style. The courtroom scene with George Hayes disguised as a female relative, followed by the villains smashing through the window, could almost have been pulled off in a silent western, with a few quote cards.Aside from the comedic and stunt aspects, this film features a fairly complicated, if predictable, plot, with the operators of the mineral assay office running a general crime operation(somewhat like Soapy Smith), including rustling, claim and property swindling, gold weighing shaving and murder. They try to swindle Hayes out of his ranch and gold mine claims and put him 6 feet under. The sheriff's son is an independent badman. Both Wayne and Hayes spend a short time in jail as the chief suspect in murders. Each figures out how to get the other out legitimately and catch the real badmen. Barbara Sheldon, a curvaceous young blond, just happens to move in with grandpa Hayes shortly after Wayne does. She immediately takes to the Duke and he doesn't make any attempt to resist. All in all, its a better than average entertaining early sound western, and I'm glad I saw it.

classicsoncall Jerry Mason (John Wayne) is fresh out of college and has sought out old friend Jake Benson (George pre "Gabby" Hayes). Together they open up a blacksmith shop, but wind up prospecting a gold strike after following up on a quartz nugget removed from a lame horse's hoof. Their mining work allows them to while away some time as they wait for Jake's granddaughter Betty (Barbara Sheldon) to arrive home from school.The film offers the obligatory bad guys, this time in the form of the crooked assayers, Harris and Cole (Lloyd Whitlock and Yakima Canutt). The pair conspire to steal Jake's ranch by having him unknowingly sign the deed over to them, while looking for a way to hijack the gold strike as well. They think they have it made when they shoot Jake in the middle of the desert, and frame Mason for the murder when he gets into town.There's an interesting sequence in both this film and another Lone Star Wayne film, "The Lawless Frontier", where Wayne's character pursues a bad guy by riding a makeshift flume through a drainage trough, heading him off at the pass so to speak. Although innovative, it's not very believable given the setting. When it comes time for Mason to stand trial for Jake's murder, Jake shows up incognito, dressed in a woman's clothing. As he gets ready to testify, he trips over his dress and reveals who he is, as Harris and Cole attempt their getaway through the courthouse window. What follows is a Keystone Cop style sequence, with the baddies hijacking a rail car, Benson in an auto, and Mason giving chase on horseback. In true Lone Star style, the picture closes with John Wayne's character winning the girl, and a fumbling wedding photographer ready to capture the moment. This time, Wayne even gets to give her a kiss.John Wayne made a little over a dozen Westerns for Lone Star Productions from 1933 to 1935. They all followed a similar formula as outlined above, some obviously better than others. For fans of the series, I would recommend "Riders of Destiny" and "Sagebrush Trail" as two of the better entries.