The Lonely Trail

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.

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.

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.

John Wayne leads a great cast of western actors including Ann Rutherford with 2 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Stuntman extraordinaire Yakima Canutt as Bull does some great work in front of the camera as well. Lafe McKee even does a cameo. It all starts when Duke is called upon to clean up some carpetbaggers led by Cy Kendall. Bob Burns starts shooting due to Jim Toney's Union hat and him and Duke are off to the races. Great to see Fred 'Snowflake' Toones with over 200 films and the most "colorful" face for Republic. Bob Kortman played a powerful role as the General's henchman and Dennis Moore is very convincing as the man on the run from the General and even his old friend Captain Ashley. "The Lonely Trail" has some wonderful moments and a must see for John Wayne fans.

The Lone Star and early Repulic two-reeler "oaters," i.e., hour-long westerns, ably served as John Wayne's training ground throughout the Thirties. I think most of the Duke's 1933-39 oaters entertaining as hell.

The cast, writers and production crew get in, get it done and get out, all in an hour give or take a few minutes. And they usually did it well. Were they corny? You bet, pardner. We're they sappy? At times. We're they scrappy? You bet yer boots!

It was in these films that Wayne and actor/stuntman extraordinaire Yakima Canutt developed the draw-back punch that's become the standard in film fights ever since.

The Lonely Trail, an early Republic feature from it's first year, 1936, is involving and action-packed and loaded with classic early western character actors of the era, such as Cy Kendall, Sam Flint and the legendary Canutt. It was directed by the king of '30s B westerns, Joe Kane and also featured a young Ann Rutherford "Snowflake." These are not up there with the great films of the era, not even close. However, for fans of the genre, they are a most entertaining way to spend an hour.