Cavaliere all'alba

"The Dawn Rider" is one of the John Wayne films of his early Western period. That covers the early 1930s to 1939. From his start in silent films in 1926 to sound pictures, almost all of Wayne's roles were uncredited. And, even when talkies took over he still had some uncredited and minor roles. His first leading role was a Western in 1930, "The Big Trail." He got some minor roles in a variety of films, and his first break of sorts came when he began to get the leads in Westerns made by poverty row studios. Leon Schlesinger Studios and Paul Malvern Productions were the earliest, and by the time he became the leading Western star for Republic, he was well known and liked among Western film fans. Of course, his big break was the 1939 feature film, "Stagecoach," in which he had a supporting role but with a sizable cast of established and known actors of the day.

Well, in this film, Wayne is John Mason who goes on the hunt for the man who kills his father. Revenge and romance mix in "The Dawn Rider," when Alice Gordon nurses him back to health, and he falls for her but then finds out the man he is after is her brother, Rudd Gordon.

A plus in this and many of the Westerns made during the heyday of Western movies (1930s to the 1960s), is seeing the great stunt work of Yakima Canutt. Here he plays the Saloon Owner who's also in league with Mason's nemesis. As fits the trend with the poverty row studios, some of the leads, including leading ladies, don't have very long careers in film. So it was with Marion Burns who plays Alice. She made only a dozen films before her career ended in 1945. She did have three later TV series appearances.

There's a good amount of gun-slinging and fisticuffs, as well as horse riding in this film - all standard fare and traits of these early Westerns. But it's definitely a B Western all around.

The Dawn Rider has all the right elements for a great movie: a love triangle, loyalties between friends and relatives, revenge, right versus wrong, and a strong-willed hero. Packaged into an hour long cowboy package, everything was right for a great movie. As with nearly all B westerns the time and money required to make a great movie were not there.

As John Mason, Wayne never loses focus in his pursuit of his father's killer. At the same time he is oblivious to the yearnings of his best friend's girl, Alice Gordon. Alice is unaware of her brother's criminal doings. Ben McClure is suspicious of Mason when he is around Alice. Rudd Gordon needs to stop Mason before being revealed as a murderer. All the while Yakima Canutt oversees everything as the evil saloon owner.

While the story is very straight forward with no plot twists, every scene works toward the climax. While it may have been the intention of Robert Bradbury to do this, too often a cheap western got bogged down with mindless action scenes. The Dawn Rider holds up very well as a movie that clearly tells its story and gets to the point without losing the viewer.

John Wayne was a strong figure on screen by 1935. His trademark swagger and delivery was still in the making, but he was genuinely the John Wayne of legend by that time. It took another four or five years for Hollywood to notice, though.

This film essentially begins with two cowboys named "Ben McClure" (Reed Howes) and "John Mason" (John Wayne) getting into a fistfight in the middle of a small town with John eventually coming out the winner. Being that neither man is the type of hold a grudge against a fair fight, after everything is said and done, they both become good friends. Not long after that, John steps into the freight office to see his father and, upon arriving there, finds that it is being held up by a number of armed thieves. To his great sadness and dismay, when his father puts up some resistance, the outlaws kill him right in front of John before leaving in a hasty manner. Quickly following them on horseback, John manages to kill at least one of the outlaws before he is also shot. Fortunately, Ben has followed close behind and manages to carry him to his house where a doctor and his girlfriend "Alice Gordon" (Marion Burns) are able to eventually get him back on his feet. What John doesn't know, however, is that Alice's brother "Rudd Gordon" (Dennis Moore) is the leader of the outlaw gang that killed his father and that this information is going to cause a number of problems for all concerned. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this short, Depression Era film suffered from a poor transition between scenes which gave the movie a rather choppy quality to it. The acting was also rather mediocre as well. Even so, it had an entertaining plot and, all things being equal, I have rated it accordingly. Average.

When John Mason's father is killed, John is wounded. Attracted to his nurse Alice, a conflict arises between him and his friend Ben who plans to marry Alice. John later finds the killer of his father but goes to face him not knowing Ben has removed the bullets from his gun.

The dawn rider has a little more drama that the usual Wayne's Lone star westerns and features a good performance from Wayne - of course there's the killer stunts. Wagon going down an incline while Wayne is on the team of horses going in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, the bits in between the gunsmoke and hove clattering can be tedious with the drama and conflict over a woman. But still passable with some good acting.

Another interminable B-western starring John Wayne, from Monogram/Lone Star Productions and director Robert Bradbury. Wayne plays John Mason, a nice guy who's returned to his hometown to visit his dad just in time to see the old man get shot down during a robbery by masked bandits. Mason teams up with local tough guy Ben (Reed Howes) to find the bad guys, but things sour when they both fall for the same gal (Marion Burns). Also featuring Dennis Moore, Yakima Canutt, Earl Dwire, Joseph DeGrasse, and Nelson McDowell.

This is so routine as to become tedious, with the same badly-choreographed fight scenes and lengthy horse chases that occur in all of these Lone Star films. It was different seeing Wayne teamed with an equal instead of the usual Gabby Hayes type. This movie also suffers from having another terrible electronic keyboard score added to it sometime during the 1980's for a video release. Added to ostensibly endear it to younger viewers used to having a score throughout every movie, it really only serves to make a bad movie worse.