I've seen quite a few of John Wayne's B-movies that he made throughout the 1930s and this one certainly was unique. I saw it on the Encore Channel and noticed that the soundtrack was very, very modern--done with electrical instruments that hadn't been invented until very recently. Also, at times it really sounds out of place. However, the voice tracks are all original. Why was this done? Could anyone explain this to me?! It detracted a bit from an otherwise excellent B-western and I then noticed this in OTHER Wayne films on Encore. Whose hair-brained idea was this?!
"The Lucky Texan" stars John Wayne with George "Gabby" Hayes. You might not recognize Gabby at first. Some of this is because in the 1930s he still hadn't settled upon his old coot character yet--appearing in some of Wayne's films with his false teeth and dressed quite well. In this guise, he occasionally even played the villain. Here, he isn't quite the erudite character but not quite the coot, either--he's a bit of a transition. While missing the teeth and sounding like the old Gabby we all know and love, here he sports a mustache instead of a scraggly beard and is a bit less of a crazy character--at least for the first 3/4 of the film.
The movie begins with Wayne and his new partner discovering gold. However, instead of staking their claim and having it jumped, they decide to keep the location of their find a secret. Little do they know that the man in the gold assayer's office is part of a gang that includes many of the folks in town and they'll stop at nothing to steal the claim. First they try to frame Hayes for murder--and this fails. Then, he try to kill him and assume he's dead---though he survived and kept his whereabouts hidden. When men now claim that Hayes sold his property to them, Wayne is sure that there is a conspiracy afoot...and he investigates while Hays lies low. How Hayes manages to do this is a real hoot--but I won't say more--it would spoil the fun.
While the plot is pretty standard, how all this is handled is certainly not. Again, I can't really say more, as it would really miss a wonderful twist. Leave it to me when I just say that you MUST see this film if you like B-westerns. You'll see what I mean.
By the way, aside from the bad soundtrack that was tacked on later, isn't it odd to see ladies wearing 1930s-style dresses and seeing one of the good guys give chase in a model T Ford as two of the baddies rode off on an electric cart?! Apart from these anachronisms (and more), this looks like an old West film and it sure baffled me!
"The Lucky Texan" stars John Wayne with George "Gabby" Hayes. You might not recognize Gabby at first. Some of this is because in the 1930s he still hadn't settled upon his old coot character yet--appearing in some of Wayne's films with his false teeth and dressed quite well. In this guise, he occasionally even played the villain. Here, he isn't quite the erudite character but not quite the coot, either--he's a bit of a transition. While missing the teeth and sounding like the old Gabby we all know and love, here he sports a mustache instead of a scraggly beard and is a bit less of a crazy character--at least for the first 3/4 of the film.
The movie begins with Wayne and his new partner discovering gold. However, instead of staking their claim and having it jumped, they decide to keep the location of their find a secret. Little do they know that the man in the gold assayer's office is part of a gang that includes many of the folks in town and they'll stop at nothing to steal the claim. First they try to frame Hayes for murder--and this fails. Then, he try to kill him and assume he's dead---though he survived and kept his whereabouts hidden. When men now claim that Hayes sold his property to them, Wayne is sure that there is a conspiracy afoot...and he investigates while Hays lies low. How Hayes manages to do this is a real hoot--but I won't say more--it would spoil the fun.
While the plot is pretty standard, how all this is handled is certainly not. Again, I can't really say more, as it would really miss a wonderful twist. Leave it to me when I just say that you MUST see this film if you like B-westerns. You'll see what I mean.
By the way, aside from the bad soundtrack that was tacked on later, isn't it odd to see ladies wearing 1930s-style dresses and seeing one of the good guys give chase in a model T Ford as two of the baddies rode off on an electric cart?! Apart from these anachronisms (and more), this looks like an old West film and it sure baffled me!