Review of Blue Steel

" . . . gold field ever discovered," Betty Mason breathlessly reveals to her fellow townsfolk, each of whom also own a geologically unprecedented gold ranch on the side as BLUE STEEL concludes. BLUE STEEL has ALL the hallmarks of early John Wayne flicks. First of all, his character is named "John," since it took Wayne about 20 years as a "movie star" to remember that in a movie he shouldn't be answering to either "Marion Mitchell Morrison" (the revised name on his birth certificate) or "Duke" (his childhood doggy\best friend's handle), OR even "John" as in "John Wayne" (a random character in a biography he was reading when the studio demanded he think up a new moniker), but maybe something like "Sam Spade" in one flick and "Rick Blaine" in the next. Secondly, some or all of the local Law take John for the REAL Bad Guy. Third, the actual crime kingpin is also the community's leading businessman. Fourth, this rich geezer fancies the young chick John is crushing on, so the geezer kills her father for the family fortune, and informs her that Dear Old Dad Is Dead while proposing to her in the same breath. In the 1930s, this was a winning film formula.