Les cavaliers du destin

Please don't judge this film by the first 10 min.. John Wayne, alias Singin' Sandy Saunders, gets out his guitar in two spots, including the opening scene, and lip syncs to two very different sounding singing voices. Please spare us any more of this!

It's pretty bad when you have to hold up the stage in order to beat the bandits you know, from experience, are going to hold it up a little later and take the money being sent to you. But, that's the predicament striking blond Cecilia Parker found herself in when Wayne saw her horse shot out from under her by the stage driver. Seems the expected bandits were part of the same criminal outfit, headed by a Mr. Kincaid, as the stage drivers. Actually, their main racket was hoarding nearly all the regional water and selling it dear to the ranchers. The ranch owned by Gabby Hayes and daughter Cecelia has a well, the only other water source in this region. Thus, Kincaid especially wants to acquire this property for a full water monopoly, while threatening to cut off his water to the other ranchers unless they sell their land to him for next to nothing. Nice guy, Eh? Well, ole John has a plan how to get the ranchers out of this impossible situation. Kincaid falls for it like Cecilia falls for Wayne and vice versa. During the follow up horse chase of Kincaid by Wayne, poetic justice is served, and the valley ranchers presumably live happily ever after. See the movie to learn the rather unexpected details. Clever man, that Singin' Sandy Saunders. Clever, but sneaky.

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.

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 .

"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".

First of all, joeytheBrit says that Cecilia Parker "...bakes cookies too." No, no, no. She does NOT bake cookies in this movie she bakes BISQUITS! Bisquits are entirely different from cookies! In the old west, biscuits were usually made with buttermilk and were eaten primarily with breakfast. Anyway, Joey is certainly correct in saying that Cecilia Parker is impossibly cute, I wish I could meet someone like her! As for the film itself the story is actually quite good and told in a fairly entertaining manner. Remember, this was filmed in 1933! The acting is just passable. Yakima Cannutt should have stayed with the stunt work as he was certainly no actor! John Wayne as "Singing Sandy" is ridiculous. The songs are just silly and don't belong in the movie. It is very obvious that Wayne did NOT do the singing. The voice in the songs sounds nothing like Wayne's voice. The songs only detract from the otherwise fairly decent story.