Pluskylang Great Film overall

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

tavm Well, this is the first I've seen one of John Wayne's B-westerns, pre-Stagecoach, and I watched for one reason only: It's the only one that features a grown-up Mary Kornman, formerly of the silent "Our Gang" series. Her charms are still ample here as when she was a pre-teen but her part mainly calls for her to react to the "arguments" between Wayne and his conman cohort, Eddy Chandler. There's a funny scene in the beginning where Wayne manages to woo Carmen Laroux while Chandler has to sit silently because earlier the latter promised to act "dumb" so he wouldn't get mixed up with another woman but the way Wayne stomps on Chandler's foot every time the latter tries to punch him never became funny with me. A later scene with the Duke asking for some tonic on the top shelf is funny though since Kornman seems partly aware of John wanting to check her out! The story itself fits the 52-minute running time so there's no stretching at the seems. All in all, The Desert Trail was a somewhat enjoyable time-waster. P.S. There's a mix of both actual score music by Lee Zahler from the original print and latter-day additional scoring from William Barber that are obvious depending on how the music sounds though Barber's score isn't too distracting. And Ms. Kornman eventually became an expert horsewoman herself before she died on June 1, 1973.

morrison-dylan-fan After having seen some of Waynes other hour-long Lone Star films,i feel that while this is not the best one its still pretty good.The plot: After having done his day working as a rodeo,Wayne and a friend go to collect there wages.When they are told that there wages have gone down from $900 to $200,Wayne decides to hold the place up and get the rest of the cash thats owed to them.Just after they leave,a gang come in come in and kill the guy at the front and take the the cash and leave fast!So everyone thinks that Wayne and his friend killed him(and that includes the law!) View on the film:The film is written by Linsley Parsons,and while the story does get slow in some parts,there are enough dark and comic parts to keep you watching.Direction:One of the downsides for director Cullen Lewis is using some really poor stock-footage of a Rodeo,but the thing Lewis does well is to have stunts (the man getting chucked thought a window by a horse!)and a really good star on a stage coach. The cast: The main highlight of the cast(and of the film)is John Wayne.Unlike some of the other Lone Star films i have seen with him,he gives an excellent comic and slightly dark performance. Final view on the film: A enjoyable film,with a very good performance by Wayne.

bkoganbing John Wayne and Eddy Chandler play a strange combination of friends in The Desert Trail. Wayne's a fast living rodeo cowboy and Chandler is gambler/conman. They fight a whole lot about everything, cards, liquor, women. There kind of a western version of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien.When Wayne decides he's not going to get stiffed out of rodeo prize money he won, they take matters into their own hands, taking precisely what's owed Wayne. Of course when two real robbers, Al Ferguson and Paul Fix decide to clean out the rest of the rodeo cash and kill the promoter, our heroes get blamed for it and have to spend nearly the rest of the film on the run.Of course this is a Lone Star cheapie that the Duke stars in here with production values severely limited. This one however had the potential to be something better. At a better studio with a tighter script and their production values, this could have been a Duke classic.As it is it's one of his better B pictures from Monogram.

counterrevolutionary Pretty good B-Western of the venerable "bickering buddies" formula benefits from Duke Morrison's increasing confidence as an actor and comfort with the "John Wayne" persona, as well as from the increasing willingness to let Wayne play characters with a bit of an edge, rather than the Roy-Rogers-type goodie-goodies of his earlier films.Definitely worth a look for fans of the Duke.7/10