User Reviews

Lone Star Productions sure churned them out in the 1930's, and "Star Packer" has the feel of one of the more rushed ones. John Wayne is U.S. Marshal John Travers, investigating a crooked hoodlum known only as "The Shadow", responsible for stealing cattle, stage holdups and the like, and giving orders from behind the door of a phony wall safe. Yakima Canutt is Travers' trusty Indian sidekick, appropriately named as... well, "Yak".

Early on, we find out that Cattlemens Union head Matt Matlock (George pre-Gabby Hayes) is really The Shadow; the dead giveaway is when he offers to buy out his (supposed) niece Anita's half of the Matlock Ranch, since "this is no place for a girl". As Anita, Verna Hillie doesn't have much to do in the film, although in a comic moment, she gets to use a six shooter to blast the butt of one of the villains in a night time scare raid.

There are a few curiosities in the film - for one, Wayne's character alternately rides a white horse and a dark horse in the first half of the film. In what could have been a neat device, a hollowed out tree stump used by a henchman is located right in the middle of the street. And finally, the movie doesn't truly live up to it's name, as Sheriff Travers never wears a badge throughout the film, that is, a star packer without a star.

The horse chases, the runaway stage scenes, the stagecoach off the cliff (another curiosity, the horses conveniently get loose from the stage) are all pretty standard stuff. But John Wayne fans will want to see this one for the charisma he displayed early on in his career. For those more critical, the white kerchiefs worn around the forehead by the good guy posse could only mean that they all had a headache.

I watched the beginning twice, could NOT make sense of it, and it bothered me for the whole movie.

So, work this out with me: Wayne (the GOOD guy) jumps on the stagecoach, disarms the drivers (!), steals the money (?!), and takes off.

Disarmed, one driver is then killed and the other wounded by the bad guys. Thanks to Wayne, who disarmed them, and then watched it happen.

Then Wayne drops the money in the dirt, rescues the girl, rides into town, chuckles it up with Yak (too bad about the dead guy, I guess)...and then later says he "found" the money back at the scene. And everyone's okay with that.

And he's the good guy? And I'm pretty sure there weren't small, hand-held flashlights at the time. And Bell did his first phone demo in 1876... were they in houses then? Am I thinking too hard about this one? Normally, I'm happy to suspend judgment to enjoy a movie, but this one bothered me. And that's a sign the move didn't really work for me.

This epic 'Lone Star' effort has a huge cast (of riders), but seems too squeezed for its 53 minutes.

It is filled with serial trophes (mystery villain, hidden gunshots, hollowed tree, 'ghostly' haunts, a final mass posse chase to capture the villain), but in contrast to most other Lone Star films, it tries to do too much in too short a time. It seems rushed.

This one could have used a sprawling 90 minutes to: flesh out all the evil henchmen introduced by name, including 'Chuckawalla' Red, 'Slippery' Williams and 'Spike' Morgan; show the back story of how George Hayes took over the ranch; give the faithful Indian companion,"Yak," (played by Yakima Canutt himself!) more to do; and give development to the romance between the interesting blonde, Verna Hillie (showcased in a subtle bed sequence), and John Wayne --the last scene shows their domesticity with their now five year old son! (Contrast this with the last 30 seconds of Buster Keaton's 1927 'College'!) Yak, skin darkened to look more 'Indian,' speaks in Tonto talk: "We do-um," and "Hi you skookem! Big fun!" But mostly John Wayne just tells him to "Stay here and keep an eye out..."

You can see even more of the versatility of the pre- 'Gabby' George Hayes as a REALLY despicable villain in the clunky serial 'The Lost City.'

Finally, even though the movie moves along interestingly enough, suddenly, everyone in town is going to chase after the villain and his gang. The cutting and pace of the film abruptly quickens, and while we see in the final epic sequence hundreds of riders (well, maybe only about 40), it came up too fast for me, and the film ended too quickly.

I'll give it an E for Epic, in other words, a five.

THE STAR PACKER is one of about 152,000,000 westerns that John Wayne acted in during the 1930s. Well, the number is a bit exaggerated, but it seemed almost like this many. This is because these B-movies were quickly made with very low budgets in order to be the second, or lesser, feature in a theater. Most Bs were pretty cheap and tended to cut corners to keep down costs and THE STAR PACKER is no exception. To save on costs, incidental music is not used, running times were kept to under an hour, the writing was often rather derivative and the actors are mostly lesser talents--and Wayne himself was definitely far from being a household name at this time. Some of these Wayne features are pretty good, while others, like this one, are watchable but also rather silly and inconsequential. I enjoyed this film and most of the others, but it's probably because I cut Bs a lot of slack.

Wayne stars as John Travers--a US Marshall investigating the actions of a local gang out to chase locals out and steal from the stage. This is odd, as the film was apparently set in the modern time or close to it, as they used telephones and modern machine guns--things you just wouldn't expect to find in the Old West. Such anachronisms are actually pretty common in B Westerns--as Gene Autry films (for example) abound with them. Wayne's sidekick is Yak--played by stuntman and real life friend of Wayne, Yakima Canutt.

The bad guy is an unknown figure referred to as "The Shadow" and he dispenses his instructions through a black screen that hides his face! This sounds exactly like a character from a movie serial--the sort of baddie that kids loved but grownups groaned at because they were so silly and at bit like Blofeld or Dr. Evil! The problem is, if you listen to his voice AND pay any attention at all, it becomes obvious early in the film that this "Shadow" is George Hayes. Now speaking of Hayes, this is the same guy who later in films was known as Gabby Hayes, but here and in several other of Wayne's early films, he looks and acts NOTHING like Gabby. In THE STAR PACKER, he was well dressed, articulate and clean-shaven--imagine that! In real life, apparently this was more the real George Hayes--though I doubt that he was evil! Now as you can tell from the last paragraph that there really is no mystery in this film. You are left with acting (passable and nothing more) and stunts--which were actually pretty amazing. Again and again, one amazing stunt after another occurred--such as men jumping from horse to horse and some great fight scenes--all done, by the way, by Canutt and his friends. Canutt was often John Wayne's double in films--and this went on for decades. The problem with some of the stunts, however, is that it appears that the film makers actually killed a few horses to get those great "stumbling horses" bits seen later in the film. Up until about 1940, film makers often strung thin metal wire and ran horses across it at full gallop! In the process, the horses' legs were usually broken and the horses were subsequently euthanized! One of the worst examples of this was the film JESSE JAMES--where several horses were brutally killed--leading to the American Humane Association insisting that a representative of the organization be on film shoots to certify that animals are NOT hurt in the production. So, since about 1940, films bear this little disclaimer. THE STAR PACKER was made well before the disclaimer and I can't see how the horses did these "tricks" without being killed.

Overall, this is at best a time-passer due to a poor plot, occasionally poor acting and an unbelievable cruel attitude towards the horses. I am no bleeding heart, but just can't understand this disregard for a poor old animal.

Sad to say this is one of the sillier of John Wayne's series of poverty row westerns for Lone Star Productions. Here he is a United States Marshal on the trail of a bandit known only, I kid you not, as the Shadow.

No it's not Lamont Cranston, it's some dude who gives his orders through an open wall safe so his men don't see who he is. But the voice is unmistakable, you'll know within 10 minutes of the film.

And another reviewer here is quite wrong, no squeals or groans from the audience would have occurred because Gabby Hayes was still playing a variety of roles and he's clean shaven here. He had not yet found his niche as the lovable oldtimer sidekick of various movie cowboy heroes like the Duke.

Later on he does lead his men quite openly in the climax so I'm not sure what the point of the original gimmick with the wall safe was. I don't think those that wrote this one knew either.

Wayne gets Yakima Canutt as an Indian sidekick here and the relationship is just about the same as an unmasked Lone Ranger and Tonto.

It's all pretty silly if you ask me.

It's kind of amusing that here we are, 3/4 century after this throw-away B-western was filmed, not only sitting through it, but writing serious, heartfelt reviews. I'm sure the folks at Lone Star would have been amused. So a couple of quick reactions: I'm kind of surprised to read that some of us think this is perhaps the best of Wayne's '30s westerns. I hope that's not true. I have seen two Mascot serials and found them both quite a bit better than this - esp The Hurricane Express. Like reviewer Dan Phillips, I couldn't make sense out of the beginning either. I read it the same way Dan did and came away wondering what I had missed. I guess 12 year olds in 1934 had a sharper eye than either of us. I love it when characters are given the actor's name. Yak is the most obvious one here, but not the only one. Just how typical was that? As some of you pointed out, the movie's name had no bearing on the plot. Truth is, it's just a great name with no utility beyond that. That hardly makes it unique. Think about Republic serials. Remember Zombies of the Stratosphere? Not a zombie to be seen. Just a killer title. It's pretty well established that the guys who named these things were not necessarily the ones who wrote them. I, too, love the ending. We go from a chaste "relationship" (if it was that) between Wayne and the actress to marriage and parenting! Another vote for immaculate conception. Then again, it meant the 12 year olds didn't have to sit through any of that mushy stuff. Ugh! Available in a Wayne collection (including the serials) and a Western collection from Millcreek Ent.

When the sheriff is shot dead by a gang of bandits he had sworn to eliminate, John Wayne pins the badge on and picks up where his predecessor left off.

Though the Star Packer isn't as well paced as some of the other films Wayne made as a contract star for Lone Star/Monogram Pictures, there's a pretty thrilling chase climax worth waiting around for, featuring some good scenery and stunt work.

There's also an interesting role reversal with George "Gabby" Hayes playing the president of the cattlemen's association, living a double life as "The Shadow", leader of the outlaw gang and the usually villainous Yakima Canutt playing the role of Wayne's Tonto-esquire Indian sidekick.

Copyright 15 August 1934 by Monogram Pictures Corp. A Lone Star Western. No New York showcase. U.S. release: 30 July 1934. U.K. release through Pathé: 24 June 1935. Never released in Australia. 54 minutes.

COMMENT: One of the best of Monogram's Lone Star series - not only action-packed and fast-moving, but utilizing an interesting cast in a fairly involving script, all filmed on a fair-sized budget.

John Wayne of course is the man who packs the star. In point of fact he wears two stars in his efforts to unmask The Shadow. There's a bit of mystery as to The Shadow's identity, though this soon becomes obvious. The seasoned fan will have no trouble, and even the casual picturegoer should tumble to it sooner rather than later. Nonetheless the actor concerned puts up a good show.

It's pleasing to report that not only is Wayne in top form, but that his mate Yakima Canutt has a major role in this one as the Duke's constant sidekick - an Indian named Yak. In fact Canutt is one of the chief joys of the movie, performing an astonishing number of increasingly spectacular stunts, including several leaps from horse to horse, a wagon plunge, and five or six Flying W's including one which catapults two riders off the one horse. Bradbury directs the triple action climax with all stops out. Lots of running inserts add to the excitement as a fair-sized posse rounds ups a fair-sized gang of outlaws. Locations are reasonably picturesque. And we love those whip pans!

The support cast, led by slim heroine Verna Hillie, also comes over as top-notch.

. . . may seem like it must be ripped from Today's 21st Century headlines, in which the mainstream media such as Fox "News" give relatives of every thug neutralized by U.S. Law Enforcement unlimited TV face time to scream "Bloody Murder!" and ignite riots, murder, and mayhem against the Public Order. But unlike Real Life in Modern America, the instigators of random cop killings in THE STAR PACKER are brought to Justice. They are NOT given $5 million each of U.S. Taxpayer money for raising such a Threat to Public Safety. They do NOT reap in more Big Bucks for writing books and appearing as "Experts" on countless TV shows. In any Civilized Country, the relatives of those who must be neutralized for the Public Good bend over backward to avoid the Public Gaze. If they're heard at all, it's to apologize for not better rearing their kid. At the end of STAR PACKER, John Wayne is shown raising his kid as a fearless future crime fighter to follow in his own footsteps. Since Wayne's sidekick here is a Native American, this flick's message is "STAR PACKERS are NOT Racist Crackers--do NOT shoot them with Guns OR Cell Phones!"