Le Texan chanceux

Unlike with most major film stars, John Wayne spent such a long apprenticeship in B westerns that you can't really put his pre-Stagecoach work with Stagecoach and beyond. It's like two different players altogether.

Bearing in mind that you can't apply the same standards of Lucky Texan with that of The Searchers, Lucky Texan was good Saturday afternoon matinée fair for the kiddies of 1934.

John Wayne and Gabby Hayes are partners in a blacksmith shop and they discover gold. Panning for it turns out to be quite profitable and they follow the advice of Walter Huston in Treasure of the Sierra Madre about not filing any claims. At least not too soon.

But the bad guys want to get their hands on the gold source and they dry gulch Gabby and they think they've killed him.

Unbeknownst to them, Gabby back in the day was an actor and did a turn in Charley's Aunt. Wayne and Gabby devise a plan to expose the villains and save the day.

Bear in mind that it was the lead in Charley's Aunt that Gabby played and you'll understand what Gabby does.

That bit put Lucky Texan a cut above the usual stuff John Wayne was doing before Stagecoach. It's still pretty amusing.

This film opens with young man Jerry Mason reuniting with Jake Benson, a friend of his late father, who he hasn't seen since he was a child. Jake tells how he is no longer ranching due to rustlers but is thinking of opening a blacksmiths. Soon they are working at it together. When they re-shoe a horse they find a stone in its hoof that contains gold; from what the rider said they establish which creek it was in. They find plenty of gold there and take it to local assay office... not realising the man running it was responsible for stealing his cattle and now plans to take Benson's ranch and gold strike... first he needs to find where the gold is. Around the same time Benson's granddaughter returns to live with him.

Despite a somewhat weak opening and pantomime villain this film turned out really well. The plot is basic but provides an excuse for some good stunts. As well as the expected fisticuffs and horse chases there are some fairly original stunts; the most obvious being as Jerry rides down a fast flowing sluice to catch a bad guy and a final chase that features Jerry on a horse and Jake in a car chasing the villains who are aboard a small, powered railway workers vehicle. Most of these feature regular stuntman Yakima Cannut who as was often the case also plays a henchman. John Wayne is solid as Jerry but it is George 'Gabby' Hayes who steals the show as Jake; especially in an hilarious courtroom scene where he turns up in drag! Barbara Sheldon okay as Betty Benson but isn't really used enough to justify her second billing. Overall I'd say this is well worth watching if you are a fan of early westerns.

My title is meant to emphasize the silent era-like features of this and many other early sound westerns. If you are used to silent films, this shouldn't bother you that much. The villains often have the exaggerated look of many silent film counterparts. The brawls, horse chases and stunts also often have the exaggerated and amateurish look of many silent films. The filming technique also often looks relatively crude, like the cheaper silent films. People apparently shot dead often conveniently resurrect later with just a head graze(The 2 apparent murders in this film turn out this way). All those highly unlikely coincidences that make the story turn out right have a silent era feel to them. Thus, some of the scenes could almost be pulled from a silent era film. This includes Wayne's(actually stunt man Yakima Canutt's) long skid sitting on a convenient tree limb, through a long large sluice tunnel. This tunnel just happened to begin where he tumbled down a long hill after missing on an attempted rider tackle, and just happened to end up where he could make another tackle attempt from a tree. We can imagine Charlie Chhaplin or Buster Keaton doing the same thing in a slightly different context. Another comedic scene was the chase via Model T and horse of the badies escaping on a motorized rail utility car. The model T and railcar finally collide after a passed up opportunity.. In the finale, the frustrated photographer stalks off, stepping high in Charlie Chaplin style. The courtroom scene with George Hayes disguised as a female relative, followed by the villains smashing through the window, could almost have been pulled off in a silent western, with a few quote cards.

Aside from the comedic and stunt aspects, this film features a fairly complicated, if predictable, plot, with the operators of the mineral assay office running a general crime operation(somewhat like Soapy Smith), including rustling, claim and property swindling, gold weighing shaving and murder. They try to swindle Hayes out of his ranch and gold mine claims and put him 6 feet under. The sheriff's son is an independent badman. Both Wayne and Hayes spend a short time in jail as the chief suspect in murders. Each figures out how to get the other out legitimately and catch the real badmen. Barbara Sheldon, a curvaceous young blond, just happens to move in with grandpa Hayes shortly after Wayne does. She immediately takes to the Duke and he doesn't make any attempt to resist. All in all, its a better than average entertaining early sound western, and I'm glad I saw it.

Looks like our friends at Lone Star put this one together on the fly. It's like they've got two plots going at the same time, and then decide to drop the one with bank robber Al (Eddie Parker) in favor of the other with Jake (Hayes) and his daughter (Sheldon). Nonetheless, there are some entertaining touches. The street fight with Wayne and Parker is especially energetic, two young guys in tip-top shape and well matched. I guess producers decided we Front Row kids had seen enough hard riding, so instead there's that nifty 3-way chase pitting horse against flivver against rail-car. The latter two are faster, but then the horse can go anywhere and we know who's got the horse. And is that Hayes actually duking it out with the bad guy. We only see the back of his head, at a time when the one-and-only Hayes was already pushing 50. Then there's that headlong slide down the sluice chute that looks like an Old West version of an E-ride at Disneyland. And what kid wouldn't have given his proverbial i- teeth to have been along on that one.

One reason I still like these Lone Star oaters is because of the young Wayne. Note how loose and relaxed he is; he's having fun out there in LA's outskirts with all his buddies in the crew and cast. He's just perfect for these matinée specials. But pity poor Barbara Sheldon as Betty. Director Bradbury has his hands full with the guys and the script, so here she is floundering around, doing her best, but looking like a confused puppy. Sadly, it appears she quit the business following this movie's wrap-up. No, this is not top-rank Lone Star, but then it's not every entry where we get to see knobby-knee Hayes in drag and his underwear. So there are compensations.

In passing—note how the assayer in his office quotes Hayes a price of $16 an ounce for gold. That was the price in 1933, and the trouble is it stayed at that price for the next 40 or so years because of gov't fiat. At the same time, the costs of mining gold were rising yearly. So the industry went into eclipse and that's why the metal that had so much to do with opening the West fell off the public's radar screen for so many years following WWII. Ironic.

"Lucky Texan" is one of a series of Lone Star westerns made by Wayne between 1933-35. This one is a cut above the average. The plot involves Wayne and his partner (George Hayes) finding gold and the efforts of baddies Lloyd Whitlock and Yakima Canutt to cheat them out of it.

This film contains a couple of oddities for a series western. Firstly, while pursuing one of the bad guys on horseback, Wayne actually misses tackling him off of his horse and lands at the bottom of a ravine. But fear not. A large downward sloping sluce just happens to be nearby and the Duke grabs a tree branch, mounts it and slides down the sluce in time to leap up a tree and jump the fleeing villain. Secondly, the final chase sequence is also interesting in that the baddies are escaping in an old railway utility car and are pursued by Hayes in a vintage auto which criss crosses the tracks Keystone Cops style with the villains, and of course by Wayne on horseback.

It is also noteworthy that Hayes, who played many different characters in this series, plays Jake Benson very close to his eventual "Gabby" character, which he had not fully developed at this time. The series also benefited from the stunt work of Yakima Canutt who can be clearly seen doubling for Wayne and others in this entry.