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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.

Neath The Arizona Skies finds John Wayne as the guardian of little Shirley Jean Rickert who is a half Indian little tyke who stands to inherit some really big bucks because property her Mother left before she died has oil on it. Dad's been out of the picture for some time and most believe he's dead. The Duke thinks otherwise and sets off to find him.

He's got Yakima Canutt and a gang he's leading for competition who would like nothing better than to snatch the girl, kill the father if he's alive and get guardianship of the fortune.

Remember this is 1934 and kidnapping stories were very commonplace in films because of the Lindbergh kidnapping a few years earlier.

I wish this film had been done by a major studio with production values of same. There is a good nugget of a plot idea here and it could have been developed a lot better than it was.

Still it's not bad for a Lone Star production for John Wayne and I think more than Duke devotees might like it.

Average Wayne-Lone Star matinée special. Chris (Wayne) is trying to secure oil money for fatherless Indian girl Nina (Rickert). Sam Black (a good name for bad guy Canutt) and his gang are trying to kidnap the girl and hijack the money. Nothing exceptional here, other than some good outdoor action and a clever Canutt-devised stunt with rope and a tree. For fans of Gabby Hayes, his likably grouchy character is almost complete. For me, the highlight was seeing Lone Star regular Earl Dwire actually play a good guy (Tom) for once. With his considerably less than handsome features, he fits the bad guy stereotype. So his role here amounts to a welcome departure showing that you don't have to look like a Wayne to play a good guy. Fairly scenic locations, not the Sierras unfortunately, but not the treeless LA scrublands either. Strikingly pretty Sheila Terry as Clara doesn't have much to do other than ride horseback in a dress, no less, and with the boys. Note the plunge off the cliff into the water. This was a popular stunt of the time and a fittingly dramatic end to a chase sequence. I can't tell whether this one is a stock shot from another film or not. But, never mind, since it's a grabber anyway. All in all, an entertaining 50 minutes, but nothing special.

This early John Wayne film left a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, for a 1934 low-budget film, it wasn't all that bad. The film's saving grace is that it clocks in at just over 50 minutes. About the time you're getting bored with it and ready to move on, it is over.

‘Neath Arizona Skies is badly in need of restoration. The image quality is fair at best and the sound track is scratchy throughout. However, despite the erosion of time, the story line remains interesting, if predictable. Your typical western, the story traces the hero's (Wayne) attempts to save a half-breed child whose worth $50,000 in oil money.

The young Wayne shows promise of what was to come. He saves the show from otherwise stale acting. One notable exception is Gaby Hayes in an uncredited bit part. He is charming and provides Wayne with a solid support that makes Wayne look better than he probably was at that time. One obvious neglect is costume design. The woman (Shelia Terry) - Wayne's love interest - is dressed in very fashionable 1930s attire, and sticks out like a sore thumb against the men in their buckskins and cowboy hats.

If you can stand bad costuming, fake sound effects and a grainy picture, the film is worth seeing. In others words, if you aren't a diehard Wayne fan, don't bother.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the 'Duke' but I do enjoy a good Western - and this one isn't. Technically, it's rough and ready and I suppose typical for an unrestored print that's nearly 80 years old.

At least there's some action - quite a lot of it but is essentially Wayne either singly on horseback, chasing after someone, or having fisty-cuffs with someone. And, yes, there's a shoot-out.

The other reviewer of this title did a fine job pointing out the plot, for what it is.

The half Native American girl is quite sparky, the Duke speaks in monotones and is rather wooden but the love interest (she finds him wounded by a river) Clara, (Sheila Terry) is more natural and a welcome diversion.

However despite all this, it's quite watchable, in a rudimentary sort of way and if it wasn't John Wayne, we wouldn't even be watching it and nor would have TCM bothered to air it, which is where I saw the movie.

"Neath the Arizona Skies" was one of the series of Lone Star Westerns that Wayne made between 1933 and 1935. It contains plenty of action and stunts. Wayne was looking more comfortable and less awkward as the hero. Sheila Terry, who had worked with Wayne at Columbia and in one of his serials is the heroine. Yakima Canutt is the chief heavy and George Hayes appears unbilled playing a character very close to the "Gabby" character that he would play exclusively from about 1936 onward. In this series Hayes played a variety of roles from sidekick, to father of the heroine, to the villain.

The best that can be said of Canutt's performance is that as an actor, he made a great stuntman. He performs a number of his trademark stunts in this film from the horse and rider going over over the cliff, to numerous horse falls and fights. The chase sequences were well photographed and staged. the plot involving the protection by Wayne of a little girl who stands to inherit oil wells, moves along and is believable. All in all, 'Neath the Arizona Skies is a competent little actioner.

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.

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

This Lone Star Pictures feature from 1934 doesn't seem to hold up as well as many of John Wayne's other early pictures. The technical quality is a little less pristine, and the plot is a little less enjoyable. 'Neath Arizona Skies a little different from many westerns in that a child lies at the heart of this story. John Wayne is "Daddy Chris" Morrell to a little Indian girl named Nina; Nina's mother is dead, and no one knows where her white father is or if he is dead or alive. Thanks to the discovery of oil on Indian lands, little Nina is suddenly worth fifty thousand dollars; this fact does not go unnoticed by desperadoes such as Sam Black (Yakima Canutt) and his gang. Morrell manages to escape town with Nina, but he is forced to send her ahead in order to slow down Black and his gang. The place of safety he sends her to ends up putting her in even more danger, and Morrell's troubles only increase when another bad guy tries to frame him for robbery. There is a decent amount of action, but it is your basic shoot-out, fisticuffs, and horse chase scenario that plays out. There is nothing really wrong with 'Neath Arizona Skies, but it just fails to excite me the way some of The Duke's other early

"Neath the Arizona Skies" is one of the innumerable B-movie Westerns in which John Wayne starred during the 1930s. The plot is well-nigh incomprehensible, possibly because, as with many B-movies from the period, the film has a very short running time of less than an hour, insufficient time in which to explain all the various complications.

Wayne's character, Chris Morrell, is the guardian of Nina, a half-Indian girl who, through her Indian mother, is the heiress to a $50,000 Indian oil claim. (How Chris became Nina's guardian is never made clear). For some reason she needs to find her missing white father, who deserted her mother when Nina was young, before she can claim the money, so Chris and Nina set off in search of him. A gang of outlaws, however, are after them, believing that if they can seize Nina from Chris this will give them a right to her oil money. Again, it is never explained just why they believe that the State of Arizona will reward them in this way rather than sentencing them to a jail term for kidnapping. A love-interest is provided for Chris in the shape of Clara Moore, a young woman whose brother happens to be one of the outlaws. (Another brother, now dead, was Chris's oldest friend).

The historical period during which the action is supposed to take place is never made clear. The male characters all wear the traditional clothes associated with Westerns set during the late 19th century, and the main mode of transport is still the horse. Nobody is seen driving a motor vehicle of any description. Nevertheless, Clara dresses in the fashions of the thirties and there are a few other details, such as a typewritten notice, which suggest a more modern setting was intended.

As with all his "Poverty Row" B-movies. this is far from being Wayne's finest hour, but at least he does enough to show why he would eventually graduate to A-movies. As for the rest of the cast, the less said the better, with the exception of little Shirley Jean Rickert, a child-star I had never come across before and quite the best thing about the film, as the irrepressible Nina, a girl determined to prove that despite her tender years she can ride a horse as well as any adult, man or woman.

Shirley Jean is the main reason why the film avoids an even lower mark than the one I have assigned to it. With its confusing plot, substandard acting and badly choreographed fight scenes, "Neath the Arizona Skies" is an example of the sort of thing Hollywood used to do very badly but still did because there was money to be made from it. Were it not for the presence of Wayne, an actor who in later life would become an American icon, few people today would ever have heard of it. 4/10

I recently saw several John Wayne films shown on the Encore Channel. I was shocked when I heard the soundtracks on these public domain films. Instead of the original music, the films all featured modern electric music--stuff that sounds really out of place with films from the 1930s. In addition, the music and new sound effects are just too loud and out of place during much of the film--making it pretty annoying viewing. My advice is to instead follow the IMDb link and download these films and watch them the way they were meant to be viewed.

This finds Wayne playing nursemaid to a small girl who is heir to a fortune in oil. He's taking care of her until he can locate her missing father, but baddies want to kidnap her and steal her claim. The child is supposed to be half American Indian, but frankly aside from the silly black wig, she looks and sounds just like a typical Hollywood child actor--a.rather poor one at that, as she often flubbed her lines or delivered them very unconvincingly. Perhaps I should cut her some slack, as she was pretty young. But teaming any cowboy with a kid like this is a recipe for disaster or, at best, mediocrity. Even a small appearance by an uncredited Gabby Hayes wasn't enough to overcome this. Now this isn't because it's a bad film--it just isn't all that great either.

I tend to fade in and out of attention while watching most of the Lonestar Wayne movies and this was not an exception. There were some wonderful moments and individual scenes, but some of it was pretty dull.

Shirley Jean Rickett, who also appeared in the "Our Gang" series, gives a sweet and memorable performance as a Betty Boop eyed half-Indian girl. When Wayne tells her in the beginning that she can't be a cowboy, she snaps back that she rides horses better than him. Cute stuff!

Yakima Canutt has a nice roll as the chief bad guy intent on kidnapping Shirley Jean for the money she'll fetch.

The movie picks up in the last ten minutes and there's actually some clever plot twists involving a hostage situation.

If you've been reading my reviews under my username lately, you've probably guessed I've been reviewing the "Our Gang" series in chronological order for the last several weeks as well as many features featuring many of its members in between some of those shorts the same way. So it is that I'm now reviewing this B-movie starring John Wayne before real stardom reached him with Stagecoach in '39 in which he's the guardian of a half-breed girl played by Shirley Jean Rickert years after leaving that series I just named. She was blonde with curls there but has a dark straight wig here. Even at less than an hour, much of the dialogue is expository that gets boring after a while so it probably would have helped if a score had been performed during those scenes as well as during a pretty exciting shoot-out and chase at the end. Still, I'm glad to have watched this on the Internet Archive so on that note, 'Neath the Arizona Skies is at the least, worth a look for fans of The Duke and Our Gang.

John Wayne, as Daddy Chris radiates his natural warmth in protecting a half-Indian girl and trying to find her father. Sam Black (Yakima Canutt) and his gang are hot on his trail with armed robbers, Buffalo Bill Jr. and Jack Rockwell who attempt to frame Wayne. Sheila Terry looked stunning dressed to the nines but somewhat out of place amidst the dust and gunfights. Shirley Jean Rickert, from "Our Gang" fame, gives a sweet and memorable performance as Daddy Chris assures her, "Don't worry, little partner, I wouldn't give you up for anything!" Some memorable moments when Duke does a lasso/elevator trick and pulls a henchmen off his horse and strings him up a tree and him and Canutt go cliff diving into the river for some classic fisticuffs. As always 'Gabby' Hayes and Earl Dwire give great performances to round out a great cast 'Neath The Arizona Skies.

An American Western; A story about a cowboy, a guardian to a mixed-Native American girl, who helps her find her father so she can claim the oil-rich land she has been bequeathed. An outlaw and a criminal present a challenge. The story is dense, thinly plotted, and clumsy for its far-fetched scenes of mistaken identity. The requisite chases and gunfights are run-of-the-mill. The scenes with the good-hearted ranch cook "Gabby" Hayes and the child Shirley Jane Ricketts are a nice touch, and the high point is the climax with some good stunts on show. John Wayne is the one who shines here though, and he carries the film with his performance, but it's let down otherwise by some scenes of stilted delivery and poor editing.

'NEATH THE ARIZONA SKIES (A Lone Star Presentation for Monogram Pictures, 1934) stars John Wayne in his tenth western for the studio. A little different from Wayne's earlier action outings forming new opening and closing underscoring, different writers and direction from the usual Robert N. Bradbury to Harry Fraser (who directed Wayne earlier RANDY RIDES ALONE (1934), and John Wayne not playing a John character. It also gives Wayne a different female co-star, a child named Shirley Jane Ricketts as an orphan Indian girl wanting to be a cowboy. Still a Paul Malvern production, it continues to be a western with no underscoring but same stock players in support, namely Yakima Canutt and George "Gabby" Hayes, the latter interestingly uncredited for his substantial role.

The story revolves around Chris Morrel, guardian and protector to little Indian girl named Nina Dowling (Shirley Jane Ricketts), whose mother has recently been deceased. Because there's legal documents entitling Nina $50,000 to an oil claim on Indian territory, and Chris believing her real father, who abandoned both mother and child years ago, to still be alive. As the two venture out to locate the father, they encounter Sam Black (Yakima Canutt) and his three henchmen with intentions on abducting the child to get the money for themselves. With John and Nina separating to distract the following bandits, Nina meets and befriends Matt Downing (George Hayes) on his ranch while John, accused of robbing the Snake River Express office, to prove his innocence to Clara (Sheila Terry) without revealing the real culprit to be her brother, Jim (Buffalo Bill Jr.). Co-starring Jack Rockwell, Weston Edwards, Phil Keefer, Earl Dwire and Frank Hill Crane.

A not bad 54 minute western blending two stories into one, having little or no time for any dull spots. With story and screenplay by Burk Tuttle resembling those hour long television westerns of the 1950s, 'NEATH THE ARIZONA SKIES contains enough action scenes to hold interest. Aside from the usual good guys versus the bad, there's John Wayne's pleasing personality and strong presence having him bond well with both heroine and child.

Available on video cassette and DVD, 'NEATH THE ARIZONA SKIES, along with other Wayne westerns from Lone Star, rediscovered and resurrected on public or independent television in the 1980s, formerly available American Movie Classics (1997-2001) cable channel, can be seen occasionally on Encore Westerns. Beware of nicely restored prints (sometimes colorized) with new but inappropriate underscoring to better but mostly hurt the potential of watching this movie. (**1/2)