Wie vom Winde verweht

Early in his career, John Wayne was a very, very busy man--working in a long string of B-Westerns throughout the 1930s. While all of them are reasonably good, they are so short and so similar that I just can't bring myself to watch them all (and there were MANY). They're not bad, mind you, but they also aren't all that memorable. It seems that when this Wayne film came on TCM I wasn't very busy so I decided to watch--and this is exactly what this film is--a decent time-passer.

As the film begins, you can see that this film is influenced by the BIRTH OF A NATION myth concerning the Reconstruction period. According to this myth, the good Souterners were taken advantage of by evil Northern opportunists bent on robbing the Southerners blind and taking away all their freedom. While it is true that there was, for a while, martial law in the Southern states following the Civil War, the truth is that Reconstruction didn't go far enough--soon allowing the old Southern power structure to return and forcing the Blacks back into subservience.

While this film is not so offensive and over the top as BIRTH OF A NATION (where all the Blacks were raping idiots), in this film they are portrayed as happy with the status quo and liked their old slave owners. This "happy ex-slave" portrayal is rather insulting and I'm sure it will raise a few eyebrows in many viewers! Fortunately, 21 years had passed since BIRTH OF A NATION and so in addition to showing Black Americans a little more sympathetically, they also ultimately revealed that not ALL the Northerners were evil Carpetbaggers! If you are looking for an accurate history lesson, this is certainly not the film to see! Now as for the rest of the film, Wayne is in excellent form--showing some improvement in his acting skills since earlier films (which were VERY rough). He still wasn't exactly the John Wayne of the 40s and 50s in style, but he was getting close. The plot is also pretty exciting and very watchable--much like a Gene Autry film (but without the cars and phones you might see in an Autry film).

Overall, this is very much a 1930s kids' film that is modest in its pretenses but still entertaining and watchable. For die-hard fans of the Duke, it's probably a must-see. For others, it's just a run of the mill 30s Western.

The title of the film "The Lonely Trail" is vaguely fitting, for it really seems that this "junior epic" deserved a more memorable or apt title to really get the thing going at full tilt. It is easy to see that with a little more intrigue, a little more romance, and a little more star-power this production could have been expanded into a much bigger deal in the late 1930s. But as it is, the film is on fairly solid footing, from being under the direction of the experienced western director Joseph Kane all the way down to the most minor of bit parts being held by competent players, including uncredited appearances by the prolific Lafe McKee and the famous supporting player Charles King. There are several components in this film that required more than merely standard attention, including musical notifications being passed through the night by some of the characters and an array of period costuming considerations. A-list actress Ann Rutherford and her eyes added some high-end legitimacy to the movie, and the very ample cast of supporting players is a "who's who" of B-westerns. For sure, John Wayne has a nice, stalwart presence here, but his normal magnetism really isn't on display, nor is it needed... the picture is just too grand in scope for the short running time it has to permit Wayne to be set apart; but Wayne's white horse is a beauty. Cy Kendall, as the General, is the presence that keeps the film's energy going in a strong, power-wielding role that he handles very nicely and convincingly... Kendall occasionally had some memorable roles in his career and this one is a good one. This picture even has some punctuating musical score offerings at just the right times. Drama is the deal here, comedy relief nearly non-existent, and action pops up only when needed... it isn't manufactured. The indoor sets are varied, while the outdoor sets are visually quite interesting, with jagged mountains and expansive valleys in evidence on the macro, and oaks, chaparral, and even eucalyptus trees abounding in the micro. It is interesting, too, to note that viewing the film in 2019 is more distant from when the picture was made in 1936 (83 years) than the picture being made was from the era that it depicts in 1865-66 (70 years). So in summary, for this viewer, this is a B-western that thought at one time about being a fairly grand film, but which decided to adhere to the 60-minute B-western standard and therefore never quite found its way to becoming really special. But it's still a pretty good film.

An American Western; A story set in 1865 about a Civil War veteran who is asked by the governor to drive out corrupt officials in his home town in Texas. Even for a short feature it holds a modicum of interest as a tale of reconstruction and political tension that came after the war. John Wayne looks the part as the white hat, spritely and heroic as the Union officer to stop Cy Kendall, who plays the part of the sly carpetbagger well, killing, stealing, and taxing the local ranchers out of their property under the pretense of state authority. More could have been made of overcoming the hatred against him by the locals for being a Union man, instead there is a fairly mediocre story and plot.

John Wayne is indeed traveling The Lonely Trail in this film. He's a Texan who enlisted with the Yankee army and has now returned home after the war to the scorn of his neighbors. They've been given less reason than ever to like the color blue. Reconstruction has come to Texas in the position of profiteering carpetbagger Cy Kendall who had a specialty in roles showing corpulent corruption.

The more Wayne sees, the more he doesn't like, the trick now is to convince his neighbors he's really on their side.

Sad, but this is one of John Wayne's worst films. It abounds in racial stereotyping. East Texas back in the day was not too different from the culture of the Deep South, it had its share of cotton plantations and slaves. Looking at the blacks in this film you would think those Yankees were their enemies as well. Seeing Etta McDaniel and Fred Toone and the other plantation hands singing because of the 'death' of the young master Dennis Moore is one of the worst examples of racism I've ever seen in any film.

Only the most devoted fans of the Duke will find anything good in this film.

Although I am a John Wayne fan, this film was painful to watch. Which begs the question, did John Ford bring something to John Wayne's career that he didn't possess before they worked together? I would say that they both needed each other. The John Ford films without John Wayne weren't that good, and the westerns that John Wayne appeared in like this one (which were not directed by John Ford) were just as bad. So what exactly did John Wayne lack in this film? I think the non-John Ford directed John Wayne westerns lacked a story, emotional depth, colour, scenery and a bit of spectacle. Before the John Ford/Wayne collaboration, westerns were just some B picture, but what John Ford did was to give it spectacle like the Cecil B. DeMille films.