Sob o Sol do Arizona

Neath the Arizona skies is one of the better early John Wayne efforts. It is clear watching this film that he was growing in stature as an actor since the very early efforts where he was often a bit wooden.

It's quite crisply filmed and has a more interesting if still quite clumsy plot than many of his early efforts. Here he attempts to keep safe a little Indian girl ( a cute Shirley Jean Rickett) who who a price on her head.

There are the familiar stunts including one great one near the end, the obligatory shootout and of course his usual sidekick Gabby Hughes manages to get involved as well.

This is another one that is really just for John Wayne fans only but if you are one this is worth watching.

This rates as the worst of the Duke's early shoot-em-ups that this writer has seen. Still, the worst John Wayne western has much to offer. My big beefs are that the plot line has a hole in it so big you could drive a stagecoach through it. The hero Chris Morrell meets a girl named Clara who turns out to be the sister of his slain friend Bud Moore. Later, she introduces him to her brother Jim, who earlier had switched shirts and hats with an unconscious Chris at the riverbank. Yet, despite being best friend to her brother, Chris doesn't seem to know that Bud had a sister AND a brother who is a bad enough hombre that his first appearance in this film is robbing an express office. Even more implausible is that Clara doesn't recognize the shirt that Chris is wearing at the riverbank as being identical to one belonging to her brother, especially since it appears as something so dressy that no self-respecting cowboy would wear it in public except to a dance. Another bigger beef that rates as a GOOF comes at the movie's beginning. While packing Nina's clothes for their journey,Chris tells her they're heading north to find her dad. Since they're still presumably in Oklahoma, which is east but not south of Arizona, a northward journey means the picture should be retitled "Neath Nebraska Skies." Despite its faults, it's a pretty typical B western with not much to distinguish it from Wayne's other Lone Star pictures, except for the Shirley Temple wannabe they stuck in this picture. Shirley had nothing to fear from the competition here. Dale Roloff

Cowboy John Wayne goes in search of the long-lost father of a half-Indian girl in order to for her to cash in on her late mother's oil rich property, while a nasty gang of cutthroats plan on snatching her for their own enrichment. Complicating things is a gang of armed robbers who attempt to frame Wayne.

Despite a few good stunts and the presence of Yakima Cannut and George "Gabby" Hayes the first two-thirds of this entry in Lone Star/Monogram Pictures' John Wayne films is mediocre and bland. Fortunately, the last third brings it all out of the muck with probably some of the best suspense and action in all of the series!

Overall, it's worth watching.

... from Monogram/Lone Star and director Harry Fraser. In the barely-there plot, Wayne plays Chris Morrell, the caretaker of young half-breed Native girl Nina (Shirley Jean Rickert). Nina is owed nearly $50,000 from oil leases on her family's land, and since the girl's mother is deceased, Chris has to track down the girl's father and get his signature on some paperwork, or else prove that the man is dead, for the girl to get her money. Naturally, some bad guys led by Sam Black (Yakima Canutt) overhear the situation and decide to try and kidnap the girl and get the money themselves. For the remainder of the movie's 52 minute running time, Chris and Nina try to outwit the baddies, with help from nice lady Clara (Sheila Terry) and old coot Matt (George "Gabby" Hayes).

This is largely indistinguishable from most of the other Lone Star westerns Wayne was in at the time: cardboard sets, bare-minimum scripting, poorly staged fist fights, and a foregone conclusion. Hayes was appearing in many of these westerns at the time, but for some reason he received no on-screen credit for this one. Wayne is slowly learning his craft, and seems just a tiny bit more natural than in previous outings.

Another of John Wayne's cheapie westerns made for Lone Star. This one has him protecting a half-Indian girl while he searches for her father and fights off an outlaw (Yakima Canutt) who wants the girl and her father for reasons of his own. As is typical with these westerns, the best parts are the stunts. It's a fairly standard oater with not a whole lot recommend to those who aren't big fans of the Duke. The little girl is clearly a white kid with a terrible black wig on. She's a pretty bad actress, too. Hearing her repeatedly call Duke "Daddy Chris" is enough to turn your stomach. If you've seen any of the low-budget westerns Duke made in the '30s, you pretty much know what to expect here. If you haven't, go ahead and watch it but be prepared that there is nothing challenging here. It's a very simple cardboard story that runs less than an hour. Harmless but unsatisfying.