Na Pista do Traidor

At the risk of sounding like a complete anorak, I have to confess to a deep affection for John Wayne's Lone Star westerns. Every one has a mighty fine title, usually nothing much to do with the story being told. They have that addictive quality that other people find in today's soap operas. In both types, the plots are familiar and preposterous, the characters are off-the-peg, the acting is poor, the heroines are pretty, and the leading man looks good (especially on a horse in J.W.'s case).

Of all J.W.'s Lone Star films, this one is my favourite. It has all the virtues listed above, maybe not as developed as in some of the later films, but there nevertheless. I particularly enjoy the way a character is introduced in the first reel, made to disappear for most of the film, and reintroduced at the end. The heroine is delightful in jodhpurs, and the bad guy simply looks dastardly in them. Then there are the pistols that seemingly are deadly at several hundred yards. And an important prop is what I take to be a genuine stagecoach.

But this film has notable extras: "interesting" singing, some truly exciting stunt work, and a remarkably lyrical climax that I don't think Robert N Banbury ever came close to emulating again. It's so good that you'd almost believe that Ingmar Bergman had seen this film and been inspired by it as he started on Virgin Spring.

Note to students of film: it's probably a bad idea to try that suggestion on your teacher!

An evil land baron is holding up water to a group of ranchers in order to try and take their properties for pennies on the dollar. Along comes Singin' Sandy Saunders (John Wayne), who saves the day for Gabby Hayes and his daughter by going undercover as the villain's newest gunman.

The first of sixteen films Wayne made for Lone Star/ Monogram Pictures, this tries to cast him as a singing cowboy, only with an obviously lip-synced voice. The title card prominently features his character as "Singin' Sandy" leading one to believe that this was meant to be the first in a proposed series!

Yes it's ridiculous, but also a lot of fun to see Wayne singing songs and shooting guns, especially when he does a little ditty before shooting it out with gunman Earl Dwire.

Riders Of Destiny features a rare villainous role for for Al "Fuzzy" St. John, who clowns around as much with the bad guys as he did playing a heroic sidekick, riding alongside Buster Crabbe and Lash LaRue.

Early talkie in which John Wayne accompanied by George ¨Gaby¨ Hayes and a beautiful damsel face ominous enemies who attempt to take the water supply . Bad guy Kincaid (Forrest Taylor) controls the local water supply and plans to do in the other ranchers . Government agent Saunders (John Wayne) shows up undercover to do in Kincaid and to find out who is stealing water from the local farmers . Meantime, Saunders wins the heart of one of his victims , Fay Denton (Cecilia Parker) . Sanders meets Charlie Denton (George Gaby Hayes, this time without beard and he bears the comic relief , as usual), an old rancher , become partners and Sandy helps as well as secures water rights for farmers . Meanwhile , the nasty wealthy Land Baron seeks vengeance and take lands from poor farmers at exorbitant rates.

The picture gets thrills , Western action , shootouts , a love story , and several fights between Wayne and his enemies ; being quite entertaining and including some comical elements . It's a low budget film with good actors , technicians, mediocre production values , pleasing results and usually regarded as one of the best Westerns made by John Wayne during his ¨Lone Star¨ period . The picture packs brawls and fights in silent cinema style and and exciting pursuits . Nice acting by John Wayne as a young Singin' Sandy Saunders who finds himself involved with claim jumpers , powerful owners and ambitious guys . Very early Wayne has the Duke looking awfully young as an undercover agent securing water rights and he even sings some songs . Sympathetic performance from veteran George ¨Gaby¨ Hayes as short-tempered person , Gaby steals the show , as usual . One of the few sidekicks to land on the annual list of Top Ten Western Box office Stars, he did so repeatedly . In his early films, he alternated between whiskered comic-relief sidekicks and clean-shaven bad guys, but by the later 1930s, he worked almost exclusively as a Western sidekick to stars such as John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Randolph Scott. After his last film, in 1950, he starred as the host of a network television show devoted to stories of the Old West for children, The Gabby Hayes Show (1950). Mediocre cinematography by Archie Stout , a notorious cameraman with a long career . Being necessary an alright remastering because of the film-copy is washed-out . The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film . Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely and usually badly edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duplicated from second- or third-generation or more copies of the film . The motion picture was professionally directed by Robert North Bradbury who made various early John Wayne vehicles .

John Wayne played a great role in the super-production ¨The big trail¨(1930) but he subsequently fell in B series during the thirties . Most of them in ¨Lone Star¨ productions , usually directed by Robert N. Bradbury , such as : ¨Rough romance¨, ¨The range feud¨, ¨Texas cyclone¨, ¨Two-fisted law¨, ¨Ride him cowboy¨, ¨Big stampede¨, ¨Haunted gold¨ , ¨The telegraph law¨, ¨Somewhere in Sonora¨ , ¨The man from Utah¨ , The man from Monterrey¨, ¨The lawless frontier¨ , ¨West of the divide¨, Rainbow Valley¨ , The desert trail¨ , The dawn rider¨, ¨Lawless range¨, The Oregon Trail¨ , and ¨Born in the west¨ . In 1938 he participated in Republic series with ¨The three musketeers¨ replacing Robert Livingston and in which George Sherman directed 8 films . Later on , Wayne starred the hit ¨The stagecoach¨ by John Ford and took part in ¨A movies¨ such as¨: ¨Allegheny uprising¨, ¨Dark command¨, ¨The spoilers¨, ¨In old California¨, ¨War of the wildcats¨, ¨Tall in the saddle¨, ¨Flame of the Barbary Coast¨ and ¨Dakota¨ . And financed his first production : ¨Angel and the badman¨ . Subsequently , with ¨Red River¨ John rose at top box-office and after that , he starred many successes .

This movie is surprisingly good. Director Robert North Bradbury, actor Bob Steele's father, did some of his best work here.

There is an attention to detail in this film that is missing from too many B Westerns.

The cast is top flight, with John Wayne, even this early, showing that personality that led him to become the single most popular movie star in the history of Hollywood. (Yes, even today there is no single star who has sold as many tickets.)

Al St. John, later known as "Fuzzy," plays a different kind of role, but still shows himself the champion scene stealer.

Cecilia Parker was a doll, cute, perky, with animated features that should have led her into more fame.

The stunt work shows the hand of that master, Yakima Canutt, who is also cast in a minor part.

All in all, this movie is about as much fun as any one film can be; it is more than worth watching: it is worth watching again.

"Riders of Destiny" was the first of several westerns Wayne made for the Lone Star arm of Monogram Pictures between 1933 and 1935. In this entry, the producers try to make the Duke into a singing cowboy called "Singin' Sandy Saunders with hilarious results. Any Wayne fan knows that the Duke couldn't have carried a tune if his life had depended on it. His voice was apparently dubbed by Smith Ballew whose deep baritone sounds nothing like Wayne. Wayne looks awkward and uncomfortable in "performing" the musical numbers. Thank heavens the singing cowboy experiment soon ended.

As for the movie itself, it contains a standard "B" western plot of the fight over water rights between the villain (Forrest Taylor) and the local ranchers. Duke, of course plays the hero. He had not yet developed his on screen character and still looked like a poverty row cowboy.

Also cast in the film were George (pre-Gabby) Hayes as the heroine's father, Cecilia Parker as the heroine and Yakima Canutt as "one of the boys" who performs his "falling from the racing horses under the wagon" stunt while doubling Wayne. Both Canutt and Hayes would go on to appear with Wayne in most of the other entries in the series. Canutt, in particular would have a profound effect on Wayne's future development teaching him, among other things, how to move, fight and look comfortable on a horse.

As "B" westerns go this one isn't too bad, however, I have to give it a failing grade because of the "singing".