The Lawless Frontier

John's parents are killed by a renegade bandit, played to the hilt by perennial bad guy, Earl Dwire. Dwire injures Hayes, who joins with John to bring him and his gang to justice.

The local sheriff, Jack Rockwell, is convinced that John's one of the gang, and when Hayes is shot, arrests John for the shooting.

There are the usual chases, gun battles, and fights that hallmark these "B" Westerns. There is one extended walking scene where you can see the Duke perfecting his special walk that became a trademark.

An excellent stunt has John riding a log down a large drainage ditch. Pretty amazing, and not without danger to the actor.

Beware though, the DVD copy looks as if they took the print from an Extended Play (EP) VHS copy. Very disappointing, but, a classic from John Wayne.

One of the other reviewers was right--this film was horribly edited--as if by a blind guy on crack! I assume this was NOT how the film was originally released--as even for a low-budget B-movie it was pretty shabby. In addition, some knuckle-heads at Fox-Lorber decided to 'improve' this public domain film by adding a new musical track--a musical track that was just god-awful. The instruments are new and very electronic, the music was used indiscriminately (and often inappropriately) and it was the exact same track used in many John Wayne B-westerns--exactly the same! It was just dreadful but you can't blame the people at Lone Star Pictures who made the film.

"The Lawless Frontier" was a below average Wayne outing--mostly due to the terribly dumb Sheriff--no one can be that dumb or incompetent! An outlaw named Zanti is posing as a Mexican--why, I have no idea. The main problem with catching him is that the local Sheriff is an idiot and seems to have no desire to do anything. Naturally, Wayne will save the day.

The only pluses for this film are the wonderful stunts--even better than you'd normally see in these Wayne B-films. A few of the stunts were just stunning and you have to see them to believe them. But, a dumb villain and Sheriff, a stabbing that somehow leaves Gabby feeling a-o.k. and some choppy elements to the film make this very tough to watch. If you do want to see it, download it from IMDb for free--it's much better than seeing the yecchy version by Fox-Lorber shown on the Encore Channel.

You have to be a diehard John Wayne fan to watch some of these lonestar productions he did early in his career. Some are actually pretty good and others not so much.

In this one it's difficult to tell what's going on most of the time and it's laugh out loud funny as they keep riding back and forth on their horses about the last 15 minutes of the film. Twice would have been suffice but it felt like they cut back and forth to them riding on their horses about a million times (which they do a lot in Wayne's Lonestar production films, but it seems the most in this one)

Starring John Wayne, Gabby Hayes, and Buffalo Bill Junior (no relation to buffalo bill. On imdb, he's listed as Jay Wilsey !) Wayne had started getting credited roles in 1930, and in this one, he's Tobin, who comes to the aid of an old guy and his daughter. the town goes after the outlaw Zanti. The first few scenes are very dark, but this one is so old, i guess we're lucky to still have it at all. Jack Rockwell is the sheriff, and no-one is sure which side the sheriff is on! lots of horses galloping, chases through the desert. Writer /Director Robert Bradbury was born Ronald, and must have started about the time the film process was invented. In this one, he's listed as R.N. Bradbury in the credits. It's a VERY typical western, where someone jumps to the WRONG conclusion, and someone is blamed for something he didn't do.... meh. what else is on?

So what can you say about a film that has the villain hamming it up with a lousy Mexican accent, an opening that has an atrocious editing job(mixing day and night footage in the same scene)and a dumb sheriff who wants to arrest the wrong man and botches his handcuffing of the real villain? For all its faults, it's actually not too bad. The chase scenes actually are quite good, with realistic falls from horseback by the girl and the villain in separate sequences. In real life, galloping over rough terrain, often with people shooting at one another, would cause those spills frequently. Once you get past the horrendous opening, Archie Stout's photography is pretty good for a B movie. I especially liked the desert foot-chase scene, with the towering basalt cliffs of Red Rock Canyon in the background. All told, the action sequences and sometimes stunning photography kept this and other John Wayne potboilers from being dull and gave depression-era audiences their money's worth, which was what made B westerns so popular in the first place. Just like audiences back then did, I sat back and enjoyed the ride, bumpy though it may be at times. Dale Roloff