This is pretty dire. Just as Italian opera always kicks off with the tenor blasting out an aria, this horse opera has Big John (in thickly caked make-up) miming pitifully to a recorded voice as he strums a guitar in the saddle. From that wobbly start, the film never really improves.
Wayne's character is named John Weston ("western" - get it?) and when he rides into town, he gets involved in the least-convincing shootout you ever saw. Once the basic plot has been established (and believe me, it's basic) what follows is wooden acting and lumbering plot exposition. The film is downright amateurish. When the Duke takes a river trip, instead of cutting from Big John in canoe to the land-based action, the editor gives us the whole laborious process of Wayne disembarking, then clambering up through the undergrowth. The insert of the guy riding shotgun on the stagecoach is oh-so-obviously NOT on the stagecoach. And speaking of "Stagecoach", it is remarkable to note the change in Wayne in five short years. Under Ford's tutelage he grew into a star, and commands the screen in the later film with effortless authority. Here, he is a green amateur.
If anything, the movie goes downhill after Weston sets off on his mission. The rodeo is merely an excuse to fill a third of the reel time with archive footage. The opening cavalcade is interminable, and we get the same stock shot of the crowd over and over again. Needless to say, Weston decides to have a go at this cow-wrasslin', and just happens to smash the calf-roping world record. Dolores the fallen woman (Anita Campillo) makes a play for Weston (there always has to be a Fallen Woman in this kind of film - often a latina, too). How come she's Mexican, when her brother isn't? Our hero snubs the judge's daughter, Marjorie (played by Polly Ann Young) in order to make off with Dolores: it is a scene of the ugliest crudity, and woefully underwritten, with Big John wordlessly walking away from the Nice Girl.
When director Robert N. Bradbury tries for novel effects, he comes a cropper. The punch-up in a blacked-out room may have seemed like a good idea when the movie was being planned in some Pasadena gin joint, but it fails miserably on the screen. It lasts too long and is too irritating for the viewer. In a medium which relies almost exclusively on visuals, black-out is rarely a smart move. And how did Big John get his white hat on in the dark? Composed of tedious medium two-shots, eschewing close-up altogether, the picture lacks cutting rhythm. If Weston and the Marshall are trying so hard not to reveal their alliance, why are they sharing a hotel room? Why does the gang suddenly decide to snub Dolores? Why did Gabby Hayes get the part of the old-timer? Wasn't Walter Brennan in town? Why is the incidental music so strange? How does Big John know that the bad guys are hiding a needle in the saddle, dipped in snake venom? What kind of idiots would try to commit a series of murders by hiding needles dipped in snake venom in cowboys' saddles? Enough already.
Wayne's character is named John Weston ("western" - get it?) and when he rides into town, he gets involved in the least-convincing shootout you ever saw. Once the basic plot has been established (and believe me, it's basic) what follows is wooden acting and lumbering plot exposition. The film is downright amateurish. When the Duke takes a river trip, instead of cutting from Big John in canoe to the land-based action, the editor gives us the whole laborious process of Wayne disembarking, then clambering up through the undergrowth. The insert of the guy riding shotgun on the stagecoach is oh-so-obviously NOT on the stagecoach. And speaking of "Stagecoach", it is remarkable to note the change in Wayne in five short years. Under Ford's tutelage he grew into a star, and commands the screen in the later film with effortless authority. Here, he is a green amateur.
If anything, the movie goes downhill after Weston sets off on his mission. The rodeo is merely an excuse to fill a third of the reel time with archive footage. The opening cavalcade is interminable, and we get the same stock shot of the crowd over and over again. Needless to say, Weston decides to have a go at this cow-wrasslin', and just happens to smash the calf-roping world record. Dolores the fallen woman (Anita Campillo) makes a play for Weston (there always has to be a Fallen Woman in this kind of film - often a latina, too). How come she's Mexican, when her brother isn't? Our hero snubs the judge's daughter, Marjorie (played by Polly Ann Young) in order to make off with Dolores: it is a scene of the ugliest crudity, and woefully underwritten, with Big John wordlessly walking away from the Nice Girl.
When director Robert N. Bradbury tries for novel effects, he comes a cropper. The punch-up in a blacked-out room may have seemed like a good idea when the movie was being planned in some Pasadena gin joint, but it fails miserably on the screen. It lasts too long and is too irritating for the viewer. In a medium which relies almost exclusively on visuals, black-out is rarely a smart move. And how did Big John get his white hat on in the dark? Composed of tedious medium two-shots, eschewing close-up altogether, the picture lacks cutting rhythm. If Weston and the Marshall are trying so hard not to reveal their alliance, why are they sharing a hotel room? Why does the gang suddenly decide to snub Dolores? Why did Gabby Hayes get the part of the old-timer? Wasn't Walter Brennan in town? Why is the incidental music so strange? How does Big John know that the bad guys are hiding a needle in the saddle, dipped in snake venom? What kind of idiots would try to commit a series of murders by hiding needles dipped in snake venom in cowboys' saddles? Enough already.