West of the Divide

Along with the usual cast of characters , that the Duke usually performs with this movie attracted my attention more so than some of his other "b" westerns save for a few,, maybe because in the beginning of this one he plays or rather I should say pretends to be a killer to get deep inside of a gang to find out who killed his dad and kidnapped his brother,, he is very good at this and has the criminals totally convinced well except for one,, and eventually they find out he is not who he says that he really is... Yakima Cannut , and George "Gabby" Hayes also star with John Wayne,, rather enjoyable western LoneStar. I would definitely recommend this to anyone being a fan of the early John Wayne movies before he became a star.

John Wayne and George Hayes come back to the place where Wayne spent his childhood in order to find out who killed his father and what became of his baby brother twelve years earlier. Wayne and Hayes then go undercover to stop a group of ranch thieves.

There's a few good scenes and a decent climax in this entry in Wayne's Lone Star western series but mostly this is middle of the road entertainment with a bit too much talking and not enough action this time around.

However, this does have some better-than-usual acting for the series. Duke and Gabby's performances are also quite likable, as is the actor that played Wayne's young friend.

West of the Divide finds the Duke as a man searching for his younger brother and at the same time the people who kidnapped him and murdered their father.

The film opens with a piece of good luck coming their way in the person of the dying gunman Gatt Ganns who's been hired by Lloyd Whitlock to kill rancher Lafe McKee. Of course Whitlock is once again a villain in the Snidely Whiplash tradition who not only wants the ranch, but also has evil designs on McKee's daughter Virginia Brown Faire.

In reviewing B westerns, sometimes I have a tendency to reach back to those 19th century morality plays so popular in that era. Whitlock in fact even laughs like a villain in one of those plays. For reference you should see the Irene Dunne-Allan Jones version of Showboat to see just the kind of drama they used to put on then. It survived in the B western, John Wayne's as well as other's.

Wayne of course by the end solves all the problems concerned and the villain gets his just desserts. We can't say how though.

The Duke pretends to be the recently deceased Mr. Ganns to get the goods on the bad guys along with sidekick Gabby Hayes. He discovers a young kid being raised by one of the outlaws. Interesting in this B western set firmly in the 19th century morality play tradition, we also have a topic so very gingerly touched on as child abuse. A rather adult theme for a western or any kind of picture at that time.

Wayne was just beginning his stay at Monogram Pictures Lone Star westerns, this was his third. Monogram had a stock company to rival the much better one of John Ford. Note how for the next three or four years, the casts are just about the same in every Wayne western at that studio. It gets hard to keep these in chronological order, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these weren't shot simultaneously.

The best you can say about the Monogram films is that they kept John Wayne employed, not something easily said during the Depression. And they beat those serials he did for Mascot. West of the Divide will never be on any John Wayne fans top 10 list.

I was a TV addict at a very early age. I lived with my grandparents, and my grandfather and I used to fight over what to watch on his television. He loved westerns; we watched "Cheyenne," and "Wyatt Earp," and "Rifleman," and numerous others during the fifties. I didn't quite share his enthusiasm for these shows, but it was a way to pass the time with him. But after seeing "The West Divide," I know why he loved westerns so. Some may refer to it as a B movie, but I think the B stands for basic. There's something thrilling about its lack of artifice. The sound of fists connecting to flesh doesn't have that ungodly amplification that later, more technically sophisticated examples of the genre had. The sentiment is rarefied like the open air. When the heroine is shot, it's played out plainly and purely; sometimes you can get a stronger emotional effect without a musical score. And the sequence with the runaway team is bracing; I figure the legendary Yakima Canutt stunted in this scene.

And then there is the young John Wayne. I think it is during this period in his career that he proved himself to be the giant star he became. When he dons white buckskin in "The Telegraph Trail," he becomes almost otherworldly. Here he plays a man posing as an outlaw to find the killer of his father. By the time he has set things right, lying supine in his long-lost brother's arms, you understand why so many moviegoers couldn't get enough of him. His entire body in that moment gives way to the scene, and you cherish how tenderly and passionately he's willing to play his part. This movie taps into that well of memories some of us have with family and loved ones, and as Father's Day is tomorrow, it helps remind me what deep, elemental emotion men often feel that these days goes unacknowledged. I certainly wasn't aware of it in those days with my grandfather; but I've gained a new consciousness that has come with my being about his age at the time and watching things I know he'd have loved. Like "The West Divide." It makes you wish they made more westerns like this one.

WEST OF THE DIVIDE (1933/34), a Lone Star Production released by Monogram Pictures, with story and direction by Robert N. Bradbury, stars John Wayne in his third low-budget western for the studio. Though not as classic as his latter westerns as STAGECOACH (1939) or THE SEARCHERS (1956), this minor production clocked at 54 minutes, which could have been an episode to an hourly western television series in later years, is actually not that bad. As with all his Lone Star productions (1933-1935), all resembling early talkies of the late 1920s, and lacking underscoring, the plot and action sequences along with the youthful presence of John Wayne, still learning the ropes as a movie cowboy, somehow make up for it.

Rather than having a five-minute prologue to the situation involving the central character as a 12-year-old boy, production values save time and cost by opening the story revolving the now adult Ted Hayden (John Wayne) accompanied by his friend, "Dusty" Rhodes (George "Gabby" Hayes, minus his beard that would later make him famous) resting out in the wilderness discussing the murder of Hayden's father when he was a boy. Left for dead, Ted is said to be found and taken in by Dusty, who, after two years under his care, has brought him back to heath. Ted also has a little brother whose mother died at the time of his birth, and wants to find him. During this reminiscing of the past leading to both men returning to the scene of the crime, Ted and Dusty notice a man stumbling to the ground, dying after drinking poisoned water. Finding an envelope on his person, they find the deceased to be Gat Ganns, a wanted killer with a $5,000 reward for his capture. Convinced of Ganns association with Jeffrey Gentry (Lloyd Whitlock), the man who bought his father's ranch, to be responsible for his father's death and brother's abduction, Ted, who bears a close resemblance to the deceased, poses Ganns to work under Gentry to see if his hunch is correct. In the meantime, Gentry, losing his bid to buy the ranch belonging to Fred Winters (Lafe McKee) and his daughter, Fay (Virginia Browne-Faire), schemes to get that ranch regardless. He has two of his henchmen to follow and rob Fay of the $3,000 for bank deposit to ruin for father financially. Accidentally shot while hiding in an abandoned barn, Fay is later found unconscious by Ted, who takes her to Doctor Silsby (Philip Kieffer) for treatment. Having found her money, Ted deposits it for her in secret at the bank. Now working for Gentry to do away with Winters, Ted later saves Spud (Billy O'Brien), a 12-year-old boy from a runaway coach and from the brutal whipping by his brutal father, Butch (Blackie Whitford. The closer Ted gets to his father's murder, the more his life is in danger. Other supporting players include Yakima Canutt, Earl Dwire and Horace B. Carpenter.

As with many of Wayne's early westerns, he bonds well with his co-stars, Virginia Browne-Faire, and youngster, played by Billy (billed Billie) O'Brien, another good reason the film works so well. Even with lack of production values, it still has charm. Chances are the plot summary had been used earlier or later with other western actors, but it's John Wayne, better known as "The Duke," who's the reason this and other his early westerns have remained watchable long after its theatrical releases.

Distributed on video cassette in the 1980s, the decade where this and other of Wayne's Lone Star westerns frequently played for a while on public television, WEST OF THE DIVIDE, also available on DVD, has had its cable television presentations, namely American Movie Classics (1996-2000) and Encore Westerns. Beware of prints with new and poorly constructed underscoring used during opening and closing credits, along with scoreless scenes that would be rough sledding for viewers to stop watching long before the movie comes to a close. (**1/2)