Sie töten für Gold

... in this dull, cheap western from Monogram and director Robert Bradbury. Wayne stars as Rod Drew, a nice young man who agrees to head up to Canada to find the long-lost niece of a family friend. Along the way, Drew runs into old school chum Wabi (Noah Beery Jr.), and the two get mistakenly accused of murder. Now on the run from the Mounties as well as still searching for the girl, the two land in a small town where various bad guys are after a map to hidden gold. Also featuring Noah Beery Sr., Verna Hillie, Robert Frazer, Iris Lancaster, Earl Dwire, and Eddie Parker.

This is dumb and boring, even by poverty row western standards. The less-than-an-hour runtime is heavily padded with travel footage and horse chases/falls that seem to go on forever. The shootouts are poorly staged, but not as badly as the fistfights, with punches clearly missing the target by a foot or more. This is a rare chance to see both Noah Beery and John Wayne acting together, and the location scenery in Mammoth Lakes, California is nice.

John Wayne heads to Canada to find the niece of his father's best friend and bring her home to him. On the train north he meets an old college buddy (Noah Beery, Jr.) who gets into trouble, so the two wind up leaping from a speeding train. This is in the first four minutes! Later, they find the girl but get mixed up with mounties, villains with bad French accents, and a fight over a goldmine.

Of all the cheapie westerns John Wayne made early in his career, this is one of the best I've seen. The stunts, by the great Yakima Canutt and Eddie Parker, are outstanding. Cool to see Noah Beery Sr. and Jr. in the same movie together. The Mammoth Lakes area location shooting is a HUGE plus. They usually shot these cheapies in the same old bland ordinary places. The change of scenery makes a world of difference. The Archie Stout photography helps a lot, too. It's a simple but entertaining oater. At just under an hour, I see no reason you shouldn't check it out.

Great alpine scenery. Yes, I know, there's a story too, but who needs it with all the terrific vistas to marvel at. Lone Star didn't just ride around California's Owens Valley on this one. No sir, they got right into some of the best mountain panoramas of the Southern Sierras. Nearly every frame has something picturesque to look at.

Maybe you can follow the plot. I couldn't. Something about a gold mine and some baddies who speak Frenchified English about as well as I can. Poor Verna Hillie, she has about ten lines in the whole movie. Still, it does get tiresome looking at all those ugly guys. Then too, watch Noah Beery Sr., who has the look and voice of a first rate villain. Definitely, he should have played the lead bad guy. Still there are some good touches-- the broken bottle (how clever), the race down the river (scope out that waterfall), and the great Earl Dwire (no actor, but with a face that would scare Frankenstein).

The only advantage most A Westerns have over this lowly programmer is script quality. Sure, that's a biggie, but otherwise this little V W can hold its own against the sleeker Cadillacs of the day.

Rod Drew is sent by a friend to locate his long lost daughter Marie, who he believes is in Northwest Canada. En route by train, Drew meets his old friend, a half breed named Wabi, who immediately becomes involved in a murder frame up and the two jump from the train wanted men. Tracking down clues to Marie's whereabouts, Drew and Wabi make their way to an abandoned cabin and find a map that Drew's friend and a partner made, showing the location of a treasure. Wabi takes Drew to a trading post run by Newsome and assisted by his daughter Felice (whom Wabi loves). Benoit, who works as a clerk in Newsome's store, tries to grab the map so he can get the treasure for LaRocque, a trapper and the film's bad man. Noting that Drew and Wabi are wanted men, LaRocque has one of his men kidnap and impersonate a Mountie, and get the map when they arrive back at the cabin, however Drew gives them a fake map, and he, Wabi, and Ryan (the Mountie) go after the treasure, while LaRocque and his men close in on Newsome's cabin to get the map. A very enjoyable B film with what seems like better directing and production values than seen in previous Bradbury films, which probably due to the fact that its based on the Curwood novel, rather than being an original Bradbury story. Nice cinematography highlight the film and overshadow the wooden acting by the entire cast, especially by Frazer and Dwire as the villains. Much of the start of the movie has character introduction which gets the film off on a wrong foot, but the film settles in and becomes enjoyable. Rating, based on B westerns, 7.

"The Trail Beyond" is one of many low-budget western B-movies made by John Wayne during the 1930s. Rather unusually for a Western, however, this one is set in Canada. No doubt the 19th-century Canadian West offered as many challenges to settlers as the American West, and gave rise to as many adventures, but in general Hollywood tended to ignore any part of the North American continent lying north of the 49th parallel. (Apart, of course, from Alaska).

Here Wayne's character Rod Drew and his friend Wabi travel to Northern Canada searching for a long-lost gold miner and his missing daughter. A complication arises, however, when they are falsely accused of murder and pursued by the Mounties. ("Wabi" is presumably an American Indian name as the character is said to be half-Indian. As, however, the name is pronounced "Wobbie" I assumed that he was really called "Robbie" but spoke with a lisp).

The film exhibits many of the weaknesses I have come to associate with "Poverty Row" westerns, namely:-

A hackneyed, cliché-ridden plot, in this case revolving around a treasure map, a gold mine and a gang of villains out to steal the treasure from its rightful owner.

Ethnically stereotyped bad guys, in this case French-Canadians with accents as villainous as their personalities. (Well, at least it makes a change from casting Mexicans or Indians as the villains).

Dubious acting skills. Even Wayne does little to suggest a major star in the making.

Lack of attention to period detail. Most of the cast wear generic late 19th century Western costumes, but at one point we see Rod and Wabi wearing 1930s-style lounge suits while travelling in a train of distinctly 20th century vintage.

Badly choreographed fist-fights. It would appear from watching this film that an extremely effective fighting technique, and one guaranteed to knock your opponent off his feet, is to punch the air about six inches away from his nose.

Some of the stunts, however, are well done, and the film does have one feature not normally associated with Poverty Row. Most B-movie Westerns of this period were filmed on a Hollywood back lot, but this one was obviously shot on location against a background of real forests, lakes and mountains. Admittedly, filming took place around Mammoth Lakes, California, around twenty degrees of latitude further south than the film's ostensible setting, but much of the photography is in fact strikingly attractive. It is this feature which is responsible for the film getting a higher mark from me than it otherwise would have done. 5/10