West of the Divide

This was the fourth of the sixteen Wayne Lone Star series. I must respectfully disagree with those on IMDb who rate it highly. I thought it was one of the worse in the series. It has all the bad elements of the series, bad acting, convoluted and dull plot,anachronisms (telephones, automobiles and women in 1930's clothes). Only the stunt work is excellent, providing the five or six interesting moments.

At one point, Wayne turns to the bad guy and says that he's acting like a character out of a dime novel. He's exactly right. The bad guy and the story are stereotypes even for 1933.

The series seems to move between films that basically follow straight stereotypical Western stories and films that provide funny and clever twists on the stereotypical stories. This one is played straight and thus only has interest for cinema or Western historians. The other type ("Riders of Destiny" and "the Star Packer," for example) are still quite entertaining 75 years later.

John Wayne stars as Ted Hayden in this one, lithe young companion of grizzled old George 'Gabby' Hayes, who was just starting to develop into the character now so familiar to Hopalong Cassidy fans. Ted is an orphan, left for dead by the varmints who done fer his paw, and saved from beneath his father's dead body by Hayes' Dusty Rhodes. All this – and much more – is related to the viewer in the opening scene, a conversation between the pair that is nothing but a huge chunk of exposition that is as lacking in subtlety as it is replete with information. Hayden has returned to his hometown to catch the man with the mad laugh who killed his father, and poses as Gat Ganns, all-round bad egg, who bears more than a passing physical resemblance to our hero.

This is a fairly acceptable entry in John Wayne's Lone Star series of films made in the early to mid-thirties. There is quite a diverting storyline, even though the acting is as creaky as usual for these flicks. It's the stunts that stand out in all of the low budget efforts Wayne made in those days, and their success is thanks to stuntman extraordinaire Yakima Canutt. You get the impression as you watch that some real hair-raising risks were taken to capture these scenes – and you sometimes wonder whether it was worth it considering the poor quality of most other aspects of the films. Watch out for Canutt standing in for bad guy Lloyd Whitlock, who sports a full head of greying hair, in the fight with Wayne near the end of the film. Canutt had dark hair and a noticeable bald patch, but hack director R. N. Bradbury obviously didn't believe in going to the expense of making even a perfunctory effort to disguise the actors' physical differences. Oddly enough, it's this kind of lack of attention to detail that make the Lone Star films so curiously endearing.

Along with the usual cast of characters , that the Duke usually performs with this movie attracted my attention more so than some of his other "b" westerns save for a few,, maybe because in the beginning of this one he plays or rather I should say pretends to be a killer to get deep inside of a gang to find out who killed his dad and kidnapped his brother,, he is very good at this and has the criminals totally convinced well except for one,, and eventually they find out he is not who he says that he really is... Yakima Cannut , and George "Gabby" Hayes also star with John Wayne,, rather enjoyable western LoneStar. I would definitely recommend this to anyone being a fan of the early John Wayne movies before he became a star.

This early John Wayne western sees Wayne playing Ted Hayden, a man who was left for dead as a boy when he father was killed. In the opening scene he discusses this with the man who looked after him. As they talk a man staggers towards then; he lives just long enough to hell them he has drunk water from a poisoned well. He is carrying papers that identify him as Gat Ganns, a wanted killer who was hoping to work for a certain Mr Gentry; the man who now owns the Hayden farm. As Hayden looks rather like Ganns he takes his place and sees Gentry about the job. It turns out Gentry is trying to acquire a neighbouring ranch and wants 'Ganns' to kill the owner... he also has designs on the owner's attractive daughter. Hayden is determined to find a way to save them. He also learns the truth about who killed his father.

While this isn't exactly a great western it is rather fun. The plot may be fairly predictable but it provides some decent action; this includes fist fights and some solid horse stunts. In most films of this sort the attractive leading lady quickly falls for the handsome hero but here she doesn't even meet him till quite a way into the film... he finds her earlier but she is unconscious. There are some fairly weak points; the opening involves quite a coincidence and Hayden doesn't look particularly like Ganns; certainly not enough that anybody shown the photograph on the wanted poster, as Gentry was, would believe he was Ganns. The acting is decent enough; John Wayne is solid as Hayden and Virginia Brown Faire is suitably sparky as Fay Winters, daughter of the ranch owner Gentry had feelings for. Lloyd Whitlock was a solid bad guy although the character was almost a pantomime villain. Overall this isn't a must see but it is fun if you enjoy westerns and have an hour to kill.

I was a TV addict at a very early age. I lived with my grandparents, and my grandfather and I used to fight over what to watch on his television. He loved westerns; we watched "Cheyenne," and "Wyatt Earp," and "Rifleman," and numerous others during the fifties. I didn't quite share his enthusiasm for these shows, but it was a way to pass the time with him. But after seeing "The West Divide," I know why he loved westerns so. Some may refer to it as a B movie, but I think the B stands for basic. There's something thrilling about its lack of artifice. The sound of fists connecting to flesh doesn't have that ungodly amplification that later, more technically sophisticated examples of the genre had. The sentiment is rarefied like the open air. When the heroine is shot, it's played out plainly and purely; sometimes you can get a stronger emotional effect without a musical score. And the sequence with the runaway team is bracing; I figure the legendary Yakima Canutt stunted in this scene.

And then there is the young John Wayne. I think it is during this period in his career that he proved himself to be the giant star he became. When he dons white buckskin in "The Telegraph Trail," he becomes almost otherworldly. Here he plays a man posing as an outlaw to find the killer of his father. By the time he has set things right, lying supine in his long-lost brother's arms, you understand why so many moviegoers couldn't get enough of him. His entire body in that moment gives way to the scene, and you cherish how tenderly and passionately he's willing to play his part. This movie taps into that well of memories some of us have with family and loved ones, and as Father's Day is tomorrow, it helps remind me what deep, elemental emotion men often feel that these days goes unacknowledged. I certainly wasn't aware of it in those days with my grandfather; but I've gained a new consciousness that has come with my being about his age at the time and watching things I know he'd have loved. Like "The West Divide." It makes you wish they made more westerns like this one.