In his first feature role , John Wayne plays Breck Coleman, who agrees to guide a wagon train to Oregon, partly because he suspects the two men responsible for his best friend’s death are wagon boss Red Flack and his sidekick, Lopez.
He also takes a personal interest in the safety of pretty Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill), who is traveling West with her brother and sister and busy fending off the advances of a Lousiana gambler named Bill Thorpe.
Thorpe throw in with Flack and Lopez, partly to eliminate the competition for Ruth’s affections. But their plans to do in Coleman keep going awry.
Thorpe is gunned down trying to ambush Coleman and, when the trip to Oregon is complete, Coleman doubles back to hunt down the other two men, leaving Ruth to wonder if he’ll ever return.
Of course, all this plays out against a backdrop of a wagon train heading West while battling floods, the desert, winter snows and marauding Indians.
Review:
An early attempt at a Western epic in sound along the lines of 1923’s silent “The Covered Wagon.” Particularly awe-inspiring is one scene in which wagons and horses are being lowered by rope down a canyon wall.
But it wasn’t a commercial success, and John Wayne soon find himself starring in series Westerns instead of featured films until John Ford’s 1939 film “Stagecoach” made him a star.
Born Marion Morrison, Wayne had appeared in uncredited roles in a number of films before this one. Legend has it that Ford recommended him for the role and that director Raoul Walsh chose the last name Wayne for his new actor because he was reding a book about Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne at the time.
The marked the only talking film for Tyrone Power Sr., father of 1940s heartthrob Tyrone Power. He plays the villainous wagon boss. Margueritte Churchill went on to marry another Western star, George O’Brien, who coincidentally appeared in a couple of Wayne Westerns, “Fort Apache” and “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.”
Walsh filmed the movie in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish at the same time, using different leading actors and actresses for the alternate language versions.
Directed by:
Raoul Walsh
Cast:
John Wayne … Breck Coleman
Marguerite Churchill … Ruth Cameron
El Brendel … Gus
Tully Marshall …. Zeke
Tyrone Power Sr. … Red Flack
David Rollins … Dave Cameron
Ian Keith … Bill Thorpe
Charles Stevens … Lopez
Louise Carver … Gus’ mother-in-law
Frederick Burton … Pa Bascom
Runtime: 125 min.
Memorable lines:
Coleman, about his friend’s death: “It was renegade whites that done it. If ever I find them hell hounds, I’ll make them hunt their holes.”
Coleman, urging the settlers to continue the trek West: “You gotta fight. That’s life. And when you stop, that’s death.”
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