The Desert Trail (1935)-John Wayne (2)

Director: Lewis D. Collins

Stars: John Wayne, Mary Kornman and Paul Fix

Genre:  Western

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Running Time: 53 Mins

Tagline: None

Synopsis:

{According to IMDB}

"Rodeo star John Scott and his gambler friend Kansas Charlie are wrongly accused of armed robbery. They leave town as fast as they can to go looking for their own suspects in Poker City. "

Discussion

This marks the first time a movie starring John Wayne, in a Lone Star Prod, not to have any theme or references about Gold. I mentioned in my other John Wayne reviews how much they tended to use the whole theme about gold mines. This time around the writers added a little more humor for Wayne’s role; giving him a comic relief sidekick, which he keeps stepping on him whenever Wayne wants to win fight with him. The movie also inserts a laughable love triangle between Wayne, The sidekick and the villain. The girl who plays the love interest made me laugh quite a couple times, with her Spanish accent and Spanish lines like “Estos Sin verguensas!” (These Shameless) Anyway, My big complain is that these movies are never scored (background music) I know they are old, more than 70 years old, but I don’t think it is too difficult to score them. I recall a couple years back, (before obtaining the 20 Movie box set) that  I owned an early DVD release of this movie. It contained a cheaply made score…at least it was a score. Believe it or not, music sometimes makes the movie too.

 

So, as to the story here…Wayne plays John Scott a rodeo star who doesn’t get paid 900 dollars for his win. Scott and his Sidekick decide to complain to the head of the rodeo. The man in charge complains there is very little work, and he can only pay up 250. Scott “smartly” points a gun at the man and asks for the 900 he deserves. They both leave quietly after obtaining the money…However, they are in for some big misunderstanding, when two men enter and kill the guy in charge of the rodeo.  Now Scott and the sidekick are being searched all over town, being accused of murder. They eventually head to another city called: Poker City, where the sheriff becomes speculative of how strange they look, very nervous and even mentioning they are supposedly friends with one of the town members, when in fact they are strangers; the guy they say they now is in fact one of the men involved in the shooting. Later on the sheriff is told by the man who committed the murder, that Scott is responsible (to blame him ofcourse) the sheriff, twisting his moustache says “I knew there was something fishy about these guys” I was cracking up when I heard that, classic western cheese.

 

Now this Wayne western is just as average as the other ones I have previously reviewed. Like I said, they at least omitted the gold theme for once.  But aside that, It is very formulaic, typical, and quiete predictable western. In the end it is a family friendly western that can be enjoyed by the whole family. I recommend it mainly for entertainment sake, so you can see the old west, filmed in the 30’s. However if you want ot see a true Wayne Classic Western, I recommend “ The Big Trail” or “Stagecoach” both of which are better and bigger budgeted westerns. Now as before, I will leave you the free link to see the movie completely for free.