Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Bill Slocum Wading through the chum bucket that is John Wayne's Lone Star legacy is no easy task. That makes "Sagebrush Trail" all the more pleasant to discover, a roughhewn gem with plenty of flaws but a good deal of sparkle, too.John Brant (Wayne) is a man on the run for a murder he did not commit. Wandering out west one step ahead of the law, he narrowly escapes a couple of trigger-happy lawmen and winds up rescued by a fellow who calls himself "Jones," and dubs Brant "Smith," making the pair quick pals on the lam."Strikes me the boss can use somebody like you," says Jones (Lane Chandler), who as it turns out knows something that might interest Brant, provided that nasty Boss (Yakima Canutt) doesn't figure him out first."Sagebrush Trail" does have flaws. Canutt was not a very good actor, nor was Nancy Shubert, who plays a storekeeper Brant and Jones both fall for. Both are asked to handle too much dialogue. The storyline does creak a good deal, as Brant has a habit of slipping off to undo the gang's machinations while somehow not being caught. Too much business revolves around the store where the girl works. But this is one time what's good outweighs what's bad, not by a lot, but by enough.Director Armand Schaefer worked cheap but with considerable smarts, here as in the earlier serial featuring Wayne, "The Hurricane Express." The twist involving Brant and Jones's secret identities isn't hard to spot, but it's still effectively delivered. I like a scene where the sheriff ponders what might happen if the two happened to meet. "I'll bet he would have made it plenty hot for him," the sheriff says, staring at wanted posters of the two outlaws.Cut to a two-shot of the outlaws, facing just like in the posters, with Brant pouring Jones a cup of joe. ""Sure made that plenty hot for me," Jones says cheerfully.It's a cheap laugh, but a very good one. There are more here, and some other nice surprises. The lawmen are treated in an interesting way, not exactly seedy (some lawmen come off worse in other Lone Star pics) but lazy and prone to shooting first, which makes it easier rooting for the nominal bad guys this time out. There's also some nice camera-work. Wayne hides from pursuers in a pond by using a hollow reed to breathe from, and we see him underwater while a lawman's boots appear in the foreground for added suspense.The resolution of the Brant-Jones situation is a trifle too neat, but give Wayne and Chandler both credit for playing the emotions so well. Wayne wasn't as subtle as he'd become, but he's good at developing our empathy. Chandler, even less subtle, does fine work as the foil of the piece.Even the bad guys' lair, which would become a stock set in later Lone Star works, has the right air of menace and mystery here, with a tunnel that becomes a centerpiece for some 180-degree camera shots.The biggest problem with "Sagebrush Trail" is its one time where there's more story than the producers could handle. Yet the film manages to score points most of the way through, making this one time Wayne got to star in a movie worth remembering during his Poverty Row days. "Sagebrush Trail" is one Lone Star I don't mind watching again.

aa56 I reckon audiences in the early 1930s were expected to suspend belief completely when they watched these pictures.Wayne pulls a reed out of the mud as if were a prop. The Law shoots into the water, and because the reed floats away, they assume they gottem, but don't care that no body floats to the surface, and skeedaddle as fast as they can. From the animal's rump, Wayne jumps on horses that should have been tied to the hitchin' post and gallops away without untying it. The Law waits in ambush for Jones and Wayne to enter the store, but fires before Wayne fully opens the door, wounding him in the shoulder, which miraculously heals in a coupla' days. They dutifully wait in the store until the two can escape before they give chase, and, of course, Jones and the wounded Wayne are much faster than the lawmen. Wayne camouflages himself and waits for a stagecoach to run over him, not caring at all if the horses step on him or a wheel squashes him. When Jones and Wayne are behind the wagon being hosed by the continuous fire of the robbers, no bullets at all hit the wagon, allowing the two to have a quiet chat.I could go on, but that should prove my point.

e_tippett I enjoyed seeing a very young John Wayne, before he had developed his signature speech, moves, etc. Sure, it was pure B Western schlock, but I had to check here before knowing for sure he was in this movie, it does not look like him at all. A must-see for all fans of John Wayne and westerns. The one thing I liked most about this movie is that even amongst the so-called "bad guys" in black hats, it half-heartedly explored the reasons why some guys joined these gangs-bad raps, wrongful imprisonment, bad choices that left them nowhere else to go and so on, so that even some of the villains elicited sympathy. The only jarring note was the blatant 30s flapper hairstyle and exaggerated eye makeup of the main female character, they didn't even make an attempt to make her look like a storekeepers daughter in the late 1800s.

classicsoncall If my count is correct, this is the eleventh Lone Star Film starring John Wayne that I've seen, and it may be the best of the bunch. Not that it doesn't have it's share of gaffs, but it was entertaining and had some humor to lighten the load. Perhaps it was Armand Schaefer's directing hand that accounts for my preference over the ones done by Robert North Bradbury and Harry Fraser. With no pun intended, this could have been an episode of "Alias Smith and Jones". Wayne's character is John Brant, escaped from prison for a murder he didn't commit; while making his getaway from the sheriff, he uses the old breathe through a reed trick to remain underwater. When he surfaces to find an outlaw waiting, he hesitates giving his name, whereby "Bob Jones" begins calling him "John Smith". Lane Chandler shares virtually equal screen time with Wayne in this oater, as the outlaw who committed the crime for which Wayne's character is being hunted. Yakima Canutt is on hand as the outlaw gang leader, and his stunt work in the film is interesting to watch. The most daring one (as Brant) is when he's covered by a pile of brush and is positioned to grab the underside of a stagecoach to get on board, while the horses have to carefully straddle him in his prone position. For me, that was a sit up and take notice scene, one that cries out for a "how they made this movie" follow up.Other scenes weren't half as daring, in fact there were two flying horse mounts that almost missed, but with a low budget production that didn't believe in do-overs, they stayed in the film. However there's a great sequence when (again as Brant) Yak jumps a hitching post and one horse to land on another horse. It's a good thing the horses cooperated.Since I mentioned the use of humor earlier, I'll note a particular scene when Smith and Jones go shopping at the general store, where they both eye up the pretty Sally Blake (Nancy Shubert) for the first time. With a handful of packages each, they manage to break each other's sack of eggs creating a mess. I guess that's why they came up with egg cartons.If you're paying attention, you'll note that when "Smith" gets dressed up to pay a visit to Sally, he removes his old shirt to put on a new one. In the story line, he was shot some two weeks earlier in the left shoulder, but that area shows no sign of damage at all. Could Wayne have been that quick a healer? In the same scene, and the only time I've ever seen it done, Wayne's character dabs his fingers into the grease of a frying pan to slick back his hair - where's the Vitalis when you need it!For anyone who's a fan and seen a handful of Wayne's Lone Star films, you'll know how this one ends. Not so much that Smith's name is cleared and the outlaws are brought to justice, but in the fact that John Wayne's character gets the girl. It happens virtually every time, and this one fades on Smith/Brant and Sally in a smooch behind his ten gallon hat.