Les Loups du désert

Separated during an attack on their family's covered wagon, one boy is taken and raised by the murderous bandits, while the other becomes a man (John Wayne) and leads a group of vigilantes against the outlaws and his own brother.

In 1935, the Lone Star unit was sold by Monogram to the fledgling Republic Pictures, who gave producer Paul Malvern a bigger budget to work with and it really shows.

While this has basically the same formula as Wayne's earlier work for Lone Star, the production values are far greater, with some really nice photography, excellent locations, and a nice little stunt-filled finale. It's always good to see Glenn Strange play a good guy too.

Thrown in are some decent songs, including another odd lip-sync performance from the Duke. Also pretty goofy is the dedication at the beginning of the movie, a salute to the vigilantes of the old west!

A debut western for John Wayne , enhanced by Olive films in 2012 with a new digital transfer. Lensed by Archie Stout on location, this western tells the story of two brothers, Wayne and Frank McGynne. Their parents are killed . One brother Mcgynne is taken by outlaws and Wayne grows up hoping to avenge the death of his parents and locate his lost brother. He forms a vigilante group and the story proceeds from there.Never dull, there are good performances from all involved. Well worth a view and a ****** out of 10 star rating.

Newborn Republic Pictures utilizes the solid directoral ability of Robert Bradbury, and the presence of John Wayne along with Yakima Canutt and his troupe of stuntriders to produce this strongly scripted film of 1860s vigilante efforts to rid the Far West of outlaw bands that were involved in widespread robbery and cattle rustling. Bradbury, whose skill with Westerns dates back to the early silent period, directs and edits with a solid awareness of suspense, building his typically short scenes with sparse and, at times, stilted dialogue and an eye for proper cast placement which makes excellent use of defined personalities such as Wayne, Frank McGlynn Jr., and Glenn Strange, and gives particular value to the hard-riding stunt performers, who are splendid throughout this well-made (and musical) adventure filmed in California's Owens Valley, at the base of the Sierra Nevada.

Westward Ho finds the Duke on the trail of as many outlaws as he can kill or capture in search of the gang that killed his parents and kidnapped his young brother.

A prologue to the main film finds the young Wyatt boys on the trail with their parents while they were driving their cattle herd to market. The young Duke is thrown clear from the wagon and thought killed and the brother is taken by outlaw leader Jack Curtis.

When the boy grows up to be John Wayne, he's got himself a mission. In a premise similar to the Lone Ranger, Wayne with official territorial permission organizes his own group of law enforcers called the Vigilantes. So they know each other in a fight with large outlaw bands, Wayne has them dress in black, but ride white horses. The get up isn't for style and Wayne instead of one lone Indian sidekick has forty or so men who have sustained similar family losses.

Of course as things go he does eventually meet up with his grown up brother and the gang that kidnapped him. For what happens you have to watch Westward Ho.

Hardly the best or the worst of Wayne's Poverty Row oaters. In fact Westward Ho has some nice production values because it is shot on location and not on the studio back lot. Unusual for a B western of the Thirties.

Not of course to be missed by the many fans of the legendary Duke.

Brother versus brother as the Duke leads a gang of white-horse-mounted vigilantes out to destroy every bad guy in the state. His parents murdered by a gang of cattle thieves, his brother taken and raised by the gang, John/the Duke sets out to locate the gang a decade after the event. Exciting action scenes which make up for stilted dialogue, especially from Mary MacLaren as John's Ma. As the row of good guys, black hats and black shirts on their white chargers, thunder across the screen, my thoughts hark back to the days of 17-inch black and white TV sets. In Australia this comes packaged on a cheap DVD with 'Flying Tigers' and 'Hell Town'. The DVD has excellent sound but generally below average picture quality!