Paradise Canyon

John Wayne and a couple of reasonable action scenes are about all that keep this B-Western afloat. The plot is mildly interesting, with Wayne working undercover trying to break up a counterfeiting ring. But it strains credibility a little too often, and the goofy medicine show settings, while occasionally amusing, cause at least one too many groans. The action scenes are OK, thanks to Wayne and Yakima Canutt, who plays the bad guy. Wayne was still progressing as an actor himself, and would later have much more of a screen presence, but he was obviously above most of the material in this movie. The film itself is really only interesting because he was in it, and it gives you reason to be thankful that eventually he was given a chance to move on to better things.

I agree with all the positive reviews but I do have the original movie and some idiot(s) have removed all the original soundtracks and have substituted some truly ghastly, awful music - all the same for the those '33-'35 Westerns.

My advice? Watch and listen to the real originals on your IMDb/computer and not the rubbish that is being played on Encore/Autry Western station. For fans of the original movie(s) the changes made to the music are absolutely offensive.

The old John Wayne westerns-before STAGECOACH are terribly important because they always pursue the ethical and attempt to do the right thing. Law and order is understood to be clear cut. Whilst we have been in this day and age, encouraged to see all sides of an issue, when evil is clearly defined-which it was in the John Wayne westerns, there was the feeling, that right MUST triumph and if John Wayne was starring, you knew it would be-because it was his mission to ensure that right was the result. Trivial in a career? No! Wayne didn't compromise his values.

Thank heavens he always sought to portray a good guy in his later films as well. He set a great example for us all. Just a footnote: When I attended law school as an older adult, I was the only student to pass a legal ethics class taught by a judge! It was thanks to those principles taught by Wayne, Wild Bill Elliott, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, et. al., that I think gave me that remarkable A!

Like a slew of John Wayne B-movies recently aired on the Encore Channel, this one features a god-awful new musical track that practically ruins the film. The music is too loud, the wrong type of music, is played on modern electronic machines and is the exact same musical accompaniment you'll find on at least a dozen other Wayne films! Yes, the exact same sound track is used again and again! Also like a slew of other Wayne films (as well as Gene Autry films now that I think of it), the film is set out West and while MOST of it looks like it was set about 1880-1890, there are tons of anachronisms! The leading lady wears modern dress and they drive about the west in a truck!! Oddly, in this and other films, when it comes to chasing the bad guys, they don't chase them in a car or truck but on horseback! It's all very bizarre but not terribly uncommon in cheap B-westerns where they often just didn't care about these details.

Wayne is looking for a traveling medicine show, as he's a good guy investigating some counterfeiting ring. Instead of confronting the crooks at the show, he joins them and does trick shooting to attract customers. At the same time, he naturally falls for the boss' pretty daughter. Eventually, it turns out that a baddie named 'Curly Joe' is behind the phony money scam. No, this is NOT the same Curly Joe who was the really lame third Stooge in the late 1950s and 1960s.

This film is not among one of the best films of the era for John Wayne. While none of the films had very high expectations, they were moderately entertaining and fun. This one, however, was a bit duller than usual--mostly due to no interesting sidekick and an amazingly dull villain. The stunts are decent but there just isn't much to this one to make it anything other than a mediocre B-movie.

For fans of Lone Star-Wayne only. It's a pretty slender installment from our friends at Paul Malvern's production company. Wayne's an undercover G-man on the trail of counterfeiter Yakima Canutt. On the way he hooks up with medicine man Doc Carter (Hodgins) and his sloe- eyed daughter (Burns). We see a lot of the medicine show and some of it is a hoot—The Texas Two whose down-home ditties are memorably corny. But reviewer Chance is right: Hodgins takes up too much screen time for a brief 50-minute feature. Too bad producer Malvern didn't pop for a location shoot at scenic Lone Pine. That would have compensated for a lot. Instead, the boys have to ride around the scrubby un-scenic outskirts of LA. He did however pop for a well-staffed chase scene at the end. Then too, there is the usual hidden hideout that fascinated Front-Row kids like myself, along with a dramatic plunge off a cliff. But the sum-total is rather plodding and not up to the usual high-action standard. (In passing— sorry to say I counted 3 "trip-wire" induced falls, which make for a dramatic tumble of horse and rider, but is unfortunately often fatal to the horse. Happily, these stunts were eventually banned. On a more upbeat note-- for a really entertaining look at how these Saturday afternoon specials were made, catch Hearts of the West {1975}.)

This is not by any means a work of art, as Big John sorts out the counterfeiters who sneak across the border. However, it is remarkably entertaining, especially given it cost about three bucks to make. The background of a medicine show adds a little by way of originality, and I suspect this is a relatively realistic picture of a not-long-vanished West, that most of the audience will have experienced and remembered. John Wayne is on good form, with a particularly enormous ten gallon hat catching the attention. Mary Astor-lookalike Marion Burns is the love interest, and the difficult father-in-law-to-be is a nice performance from Earle Hodgins, who manages even to ruin their wedding. Yakima Canutt's acting is seen to good effect, as a hard-bitten villain, and Reed Howes is a good heavy. The stunts are as usual incredible, and presumably not every horse survived the picture. High Noon it is not, but there are worse ways of spending 50 minutes of your time.