Even for John Wayne's legendarily weak Lone Star westerns, this one's a real turkey.
Wayne plays John Travers, who takes over as sheriff of the terrorized town of Little Rock after a horse-stealing, stage-robbing mastermind known as "The Shadow" kills the last "star-packing" lawman. With the help of his Indian partner Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers investigates how the Shadow operates and leads a gang of locals against him.
Dan Phillips makes a great point in his review here. Early in the movie, we see Yak tell Travers "two men going to hold up stage... Coyote Canyon...much money on stage." So what does Travers do? He holds up the stage himself, disarms the guard riding shotgun, a guy named Joe, and rides off with the loot, leaving the disarmed guard and driver to be shot by the hold-up men, the guard fatally. Travers only rides in after the hold-up men ride off, to save the driver and the pretty girl Anita (Verna Hillie) on the stage.
What the heck!
We are told early on by rancher Matt Matlock (George – not yet Gabby – Hayes), that the Shadow "has absolutely no regard for human life." That apparently holds true for Travers as well, who shares a laugh with Anita after the shooting death of poor Joe. Sure, he foiled the robbery by stealing the money, but why couldn't he and Yak have hung around and stopped the stage robbery by riding up on the bad guys from behind?
You aren't supposed to ask questions with these sorts of films, made for young boys who craved adventure. But I'm pretty sure they were bright enough to wonder about Travers, too. Later in the film, Travers leads a captured baddie to a wall safe from which the Shadow gives his orders. Travers is only a few feet away from the guy, separated by an open safe door. Why not grab the Shadow then and there?
The only explanation we get is given at the start of the movie, by Yak: "More trouble, more fun." If Travers stopped the Shadow then, he wouldn't have had another chance to save Anita from a runaway wagon.
"The Star Packer" does have a lot of stunts. I counted five horse spills effected by trip-wires, those things that the ASPCA finally put a stop to which killed many of the horses. They made the horses fall end-over-end, risking broken necks and legs. You don't really need them, and other Lone Star westerns don't use them nearly so often. Here, director Robert N. Bradbury was taking no chances. He knew he had a bore of a story on his hands, and must have counted on the stunts to liven things up.
The usual Lone Star gang is in evidence here, including Canutt and Hayes playing on opposite sides of the law, though not the same sides their characters were usually on. Earl Dwire, a personal favorite, is a bad guy here, like he was half the time in these movies, as a villain who sneers "We'll be outta here by noon tomorrow" when Travers puts him behind bars.
Wayne is more wooden here than normal, and kind of dull, unusually so for him. He generates zero chemistry with Hillie and seems ready to move on to his next on-screen adventure. The film moves so predictably that I can't blame him. Even with a town interestingly tricked-up with hollowed logs and secret passages, everything moves in such a slow fashion you don't care how it ends, just so it does.
Will Travers save the town and win the girl? I could have cared less. All I could do was think of poor Joe and those horses. They deserved better. So do you.
Wayne plays John Travers, who takes over as sheriff of the terrorized town of Little Rock after a horse-stealing, stage-robbing mastermind known as "The Shadow" kills the last "star-packing" lawman. With the help of his Indian partner Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers investigates how the Shadow operates and leads a gang of locals against him.
Dan Phillips makes a great point in his review here. Early in the movie, we see Yak tell Travers "two men going to hold up stage... Coyote Canyon...much money on stage." So what does Travers do? He holds up the stage himself, disarms the guard riding shotgun, a guy named Joe, and rides off with the loot, leaving the disarmed guard and driver to be shot by the hold-up men, the guard fatally. Travers only rides in after the hold-up men ride off, to save the driver and the pretty girl Anita (Verna Hillie) on the stage.
What the heck!
We are told early on by rancher Matt Matlock (George – not yet Gabby – Hayes), that the Shadow "has absolutely no regard for human life." That apparently holds true for Travers as well, who shares a laugh with Anita after the shooting death of poor Joe. Sure, he foiled the robbery by stealing the money, but why couldn't he and Yak have hung around and stopped the stage robbery by riding up on the bad guys from behind?
You aren't supposed to ask questions with these sorts of films, made for young boys who craved adventure. But I'm pretty sure they were bright enough to wonder about Travers, too. Later in the film, Travers leads a captured baddie to a wall safe from which the Shadow gives his orders. Travers is only a few feet away from the guy, separated by an open safe door. Why not grab the Shadow then and there?
The only explanation we get is given at the start of the movie, by Yak: "More trouble, more fun." If Travers stopped the Shadow then, he wouldn't have had another chance to save Anita from a runaway wagon.
"The Star Packer" does have a lot of stunts. I counted five horse spills effected by trip-wires, those things that the ASPCA finally put a stop to which killed many of the horses. They made the horses fall end-over-end, risking broken necks and legs. You don't really need them, and other Lone Star westerns don't use them nearly so often. Here, director Robert N. Bradbury was taking no chances. He knew he had a bore of a story on his hands, and must have counted on the stunts to liven things up.
The usual Lone Star gang is in evidence here, including Canutt and Hayes playing on opposite sides of the law, though not the same sides their characters were usually on. Earl Dwire, a personal favorite, is a bad guy here, like he was half the time in these movies, as a villain who sneers "We'll be outta here by noon tomorrow" when Travers puts him behind bars.
Wayne is more wooden here than normal, and kind of dull, unusually so for him. He generates zero chemistry with Hillie and seems ready to move on to his next on-screen adventure. The film moves so predictably that I can't blame him. Even with a town interestingly tricked-up with hollowed logs and secret passages, everything moves in such a slow fashion you don't care how it ends, just so it does.
Will Travers save the town and win the girl? I could have cared less. All I could do was think of poor Joe and those horses. They deserved better. So do you.