Innocent nostalgia
They don't make 'em like this any more, and I doubt they ever will again. This tall tale came in a 3-disc, 9 B-movie box set, called The Classic Tough Guys. The oddity in this collection is Houston's Beat the Devil, which has claims to being a good movie: Houston liked it, anyway. The others are, well, B movies; some of them might even be C movies. Two of them are Lone Star productions, featuring a young, athletic, guitar-toting and (would you believe it) singing John Wayne. I gather his singing was dubbed. Anyway, the better of these two is The Lucky Texan. There is something fondly endearing about this slice of the Old West. Cowboy fashions were different in the 1930s. Whatever happened to the obligatory ten-gallon hat? Somehow the characters and dress of these old fellows was otherwise more real and convincing than in later horse epics. The men actually looked as if they were used to working hard for a living. Life was much simpler and more gritty, and you can't help thinking that the way it's pictured is generally more authentic. In other respects a lot of the action is decidedly imaginative. When Duke is in a hurry to get on his horse, he doesn't mount it --- he flies on to it. That looked painful to me. There's a fair bit of fighting, which is fine: except that none of the punches connect. It doesn't matter, the guy who's taking the punch falls down anyway. The Lucky Texan is a grand story. It starts out as a tale of nefarious double-dealing by a couple of low-down ornery coyotes, and then, just after it's about half-way through, it turns into a sort of Wild West version of Charlie's Aunt. I was interested all the way through, and enjoyed several hearty laughs. I felt I was a young kid again, having a great time at the Saturday morning matinee. Why not watch it ? You might like it.

One of Wayne's best early Westerns!
The Lucky Texan has to be one of the highlights of John Wayne's career. Not only is the plot well explained, but it was also nicely written and flows well.
Synopsis: Mason (John Wayne), has joined his fathers gold mining partner, (George Hayes), to steak a claim up near their hometown. However, two very greedy storeowners would die to lay their hands on this gold claim, costing up to $20,000. One of them gets completely bested and turned in by John Wayne in the middle of the film, leaving the sheriff to lock up his own son! The climax is very exciting, with a car and horse chase to get rid of the threatening outlaws.
This is one of the early westerns not to be forgotten, as it it should be the pride of his Lone Star pictures and others.

John Wayne and Gabby Hayes in an early B Western
In "Lucky Texan" (1934), John Wayne plays Jerry Mason, who partners up with the old friend of his father, Jake "Grandy" Benson (George "Gabby" Hayes) on a gold strike. But as they work their claim in secret the local accessor, Harris (Lloyd Whitlock) and his henchman Joe Cole (Yakima Canutt), are trying to find out where the strike is so they can kill the old man. This one also has a rather funny chase scene that involves an early automobile and a railroad handcar, while the Duke is on a horse, that will have you thinking more of the Keystone Cops than John Ford, but it actually sort of works because these are really the sort of films you would want to see at a Saturday matinee.

Written & directed by Robert N. Bradbury, "The Lucky Texan" was the third of the poverty row Westerns that Wayne did for Lone Star between 1933 and 1935. As is usually the case with these B Westerns the attraction is both the young John Wayne before he fully develops his heroic cowboy persona and the stunt work of the legendary Yakima Canutt (the best one is where Mason leaps for a bad guy, misses, falls into a ravine, and ends up catching the guy at the other end). The print copy is less than stellar, but then it was not like they were working with first rate production values to begin with at Lone Star. I keep expecting these to be really bad, but they are more than halfway decent (so far).

A B Western First
Gabby Hayes in drag. Enough said