The Lucky Texan (1934)

Copyright 15 January 1934 by Monogram Pictures Corp. A Lone Star Western. No New York opening. U.S. release: 6 January 1934. U.K. release through Pathé: 3 December 1934. 6 reels. 56 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A blacksmith and his partner find gold in a creek bed.COMMENT: George Hayes puts on his "Gabby" voice for this one. Even though he doesn't wear the "Gabby" costume and make-up, he does give us a cleverly done old lady impersonation by way of a bonus. But even of more interest than Gabby are two outstanding action chase sequences. Halfway through Wayne jumps for Parker from horseback - but misses. So he literally skates after him down a storm-water channel. The climax finds both our heroes in hot pursuit of the two villains; Wayne on horseback, Hayes in an old jalopy versus Whitlock and Canutt on a speeding rail handcar. The handcar is used not only for thrilling near-misses with the flivver, but as a camera mount for exciting running inserts and tracking shots.Incidentally, in that otherwise excellent book on John Wayne and the Movies by Allen Eyles, the photo purporting to be from The Lucky Texan is wrongly captioned. The still actually shows Wayne, Hayes and Cecilia Parker in Riders of Destiny. Miss Parker is a petite blonde, but Miss Sheldon is smaller in stature and is neither as pretty nor as personable. However, Barbara's role in The Lucky Texan rates as rather inconsequential. Not only does she make a late entrance, but she figures very little in either of the movie's two interconnected stories.The movie suffers from the usual Lone Star defects of "B"-slow pacing and directorial whip pans (used for scene changes) that don't quite work, but Canutt has opportunities not only to act the villain but to double for Wayne in some thrilling stuntwork, while Wayne himself comes across in a most agreeable and sympathetic manner.Despite its small budget and obviously hasty shooting schedule, The Lucky Texan (the title has little to do with the plot. Hayes is the one who is "lucky". Not only does he find the gold - admittedly assisted by the Texan - but escapes death twice) comes over as one of the most exciting and most interesting of the Lone Stars. Certainly it's tops in the all-important action department.

Jerry Mason (John Wayne) is a tough Eastner who goes West and meets Jake Benson (George Gaby Hayes who bears the comic relief , as usual), an old rancher, become partners and strike it rich with a gold mine. The Young Texan and the old man then find their lives complicated by bad guys and a woman . The prospectors securing their gold discovery against mean villains . They find a mine and are successful, but when Jake sells some gold and after depositing the cash he is detained for the attempted murder of banker Williams . Meanwhile , Betty (Barbara Sheldon) arrives to live with Jake, but before she learns of his whereabouts , Jerry locates the guilty bunch and Jake is freed . But the nasty outlaws seek vengeance . The picture gets thrills , Western action , shootouts , a love story , and several fights between Wayne and his enemies ; being quite entertaining . 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 a final pursuit in Keystone wake . Nice acting by John Wayne as a young Texan who finds himself involved with claim jumpers , miners and ambitious guys . Very early Wayne has the Duke looking awfully young as cowboy securing his gold . Sympathetic performance from veteran George ¨Gaby¨ Hayes as short-tempered person , Gaby steals the show as when he get dressed in woman clothes and gives a special spectacle in court . 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 .

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!

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.