The Lucky Texan (1934)

Memorable, crazy movie

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Amateur movie with Big budget

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

THE LUCKY TEXAN is another of the B-movie westerns that John Wayne made for Lone Star back in the 1930s. It's a fast-paced and amusing little picture in which Wayne and his buddy play gold prospectors who decide to open a mine, only to be attacked by murderous rivals. This film is notable for featuring plentiful action sequences and a minimum of plotting. There are a lot of two-fisted bouts, a hilarious stunt sequence of Wayne water-skiing, and a classic rail cart chase climax which certainly lifts a smile or two. It's strictly ordinary, but still infinitely more entertaining than much modern-day fare.

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 .

The Lucky Texan will appeal most to baby-boomers. This should be my type of movie. However, young John Wayne does not appeal to me in this western. I like westerns. This would have satisfied me as a child growing up. Now, the westerns are more sophisticated in almost all aspects. The movie to me was almost comedic. I do like Gabby Hayes in the movie. He did remind me of me being a child watching these types of westerns. It is thankfully short. So, if you have an afternoon and want to watch a bit of nostalgia, then bring on the popcorn. Otherwise, I found most of the acting lacking and the script boring. The Lucky Texan is worth watching to see how much growth John Wayne did as an actor. I thought Stagecoach was better. Enjoy.

One of the pleasures of watching old films like this is seeing some of the more bizarre twists and turns.Here we have the veteran actor Gabby Hayes in an early role disguising himself in drag to come to the rescue of John Wayne who has been accused of Gabby's own murder. To make sure he isn't recognise by the real villains, he uses his old theatre background to pass incognito.Oh, I bet that excuse has been used by a lot of other transvestites in the past, "Just throwing a dress on, dear, to go help someone in need." Sadly, Gabby makes one of the ugliest women I've ever seen, you think he could have made more of an effort. Get a makeover, darling! The rest of the film is very much your basic western, evil land grabbers and gold stake claim jumpers. With some horse chases and fist fights thrown in.But it's moments like Gabby's that some of us live for, that spark of strangeness in something otherwise rather dull. Sometimes you never know quite what you'll come across.