O Torneio da Morte

Oh, brother, this one starts out with John Wayne riding his horse and singing like he's high on wacky tobacky. His singing voice is dubbed but that just makes it more embarrassing, I think. Anyway, this singing cowboy rides into town just as the bank is being robbed. He helps marshal Gabby Hayes stop the robbers and is immediately recruited to do some undercover work with a gang that's fixing rodeos...or something like that.

Polly Ann Young plays the female lead and she wears 1930s clothes even though this is supposed to take place in the Old West. There are also telephone poles throughout the entire movie that they don't even try to shoot around. They use stock footage during the rodeo scenes that clearly have people in 1930s attire in the audience. Historical accuracy was not a concern to the good people at Lone Star. This is one of many B westerns Wayne made in the '30s before he hit it big. The vast majority of these were forgettable but watchable oaters with little or nothing to recommend about them. A select few were better than average and many others were worse than average. This one's kind of crappy but if you have a good sense of humor and like to poke fun at bad movies, you might like it. Beware modern copies that have a terrible electronic score that often just starts at random spots in the movie.

Here's another of the cheap B westerns that John Wayne starred in between THE BIG TRAIL and STAGECOACH. He's singing - voice provided by Jack Kirk - on a slow horse with his last dollar. Marshall Gabby Hayes gets him to look into some baddies. Wayne romances Polly Ann Young and gets into a fixed rodeo.

The copy I looked at was pretty good, with some nice camerawork by Archie Stout, one of twelve he was DP on that year. This being a Paul Malvern production, little money was spent on anything, and the soundtrack was so odd, atypically filled with romantic violas and blaring brass, that I concluded it was added decades later, along with the Foley work.

It's directed at a good clip by Robert Bradbury, but no one was getting a fat contract with a major studio off this one. John Ford would rescue Wayne in 1939, and Stout, who had been DP on Demille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, a few years later.

This film essentially begins with a cowboy named "John Weston" (John Wayne) riding into a small town to inquire about a job. While he's talking, however, he notices that the local bank is being robbed by three men. With the local marshal out-gunned, John decides to return their fire which results in two of them being killed and the other one wounded to the point that he immediately surrenders. Quite impressed, "Marshal George Higgins" (George 'Gabby' Hayes) promptly offers John a job as his new deputy. After accepting the job offer, John is then sent to investigate a fraudulent rodeo circuit in another town which has already resulted in the deaths of three other cowboys--all by snakebite. However, to get to the bottom of this mystery, John has to volunteer as a participant in the same events as the other three cowboys. What he doesn't realize, however, is the overall level of corruption and the exact number of men that are involved. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I found this to be a rather amusing film due in large part to the antiquated techniques involved in its production--with the recycled background noise during the rodeo scene being especially noticeable. Likewise, having the film start off with John Wayne strumming a guitar and supposedly singing while on horseback was equally entertaining. Admittedly, this film is extremely dated and certain allowances are almost certainly required as it pales in comparison to modern standards. Be that as it may, while it certainly wasn't a great film by any means, it managed to pass the time well enough and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

At the start of this Lone Star cheapie, the Duke strays into Roy Rogers territory as he warbles in a worryingly light voice while trotting along on his trusty steed - and one can only speculate on how foolish he must have felt. Thankfully, our hero quickly becomes too involved with a crooked rodeo gang to 'entertain' us with any more serenades as he 'bulldogs' and 'Roman Rides' and does all the other things an honest cowboy has to do to get in with a gang of crooks.

Subsequent fame has given us a kinder opinion of Wayne than he probably deserves in terms of his potential in these early days. Ford saw something there, but nobody else in Hollywood did, and Wayne spent most of the 30s trudging from one no-budget potboiler to another. He's better than most of the cast in this flick, but there's little to indicate the massive star power he would one day possess - it's only his size that seems to give him a presence (and that, if truth be told, is what Wayne was - a screen presence rather than an accomplished actor).

All these flicks were padded out with interminable shots of cowboys riding very fast on their horses, and this one's no different. But in this one we're also treated to lengthy scenes of rodeo riders - which are actually more interesting than the horse-riding fillers, even though the numerous shots of men twisting steers' necks to near-impossible angles in order to floor them and prove their macho status are not pleasant to watch. And the Indians - who were rarely a feature in the Lone Star flicks - are relegated to the status of rodeo sideshow acts here.

THE MAN FROM UTAH is by no means the worst of the Lone Stars pics (of the ones I've seen, that particular wooden spoon is reserved for RANDY RIDES ALONE) although the superhuman status given to Wayne's character is a bit over the top. Probably the best from this era is THE LUCKY TEXAN, so if, for some bizarre reason, you're in a position to choose between the two, be sure to plump for the Texan.

Forget the guitar-strumming opening. This is Wayne at his youthfully charming best, relaxed and easy-going before the pressures of super-stardom and the booze bottle began to show .This is really a rodeo picture with lots of well-integrated footage of calf-roping, bull-dogging, and more, but no gun-play. (Am I wrong or do some of the pageant paraders look like they just staggered out of a saloon.) The baddies are trying to rip-off the town sponsors of the rodeo and only Wayne and the marshal stand in their way. It's fun watching the cantankerous Gabby character trying to break out from Hayes' serious marshal role. Polly Ann Young (Loretta's sister) with a really big smile makes a fetching love interest-- watch Wayne really plant one on her at fade-out. I don't know, but I thought the girl who played the Mexican Delores had a really phony accent. Then I checked the cast and came to find her movie credits are mostly Spanish language productions! Oh well, maybe she don't speak Spanish so good. Anyway, this is average Lone Star fare, mainly for rodeo fans who like seeing a bull's big neck get stretched or a scrawny little calf get thrown to the ground.