Happy 100th, John Wayne!

The Desert Trail (1935)

John Wayne stars as a rodeo rider seeking his prize money in this B-western from Lone Star Productions. He and his buddy are framed for murder but they're determined to find the real killer and clear their names. They ride horses and shoot guns and the whole thing's a real hoot.

Before The Duke made it big in Hollyweird he did a whole bunch of these smaller pictures. Each one pretty much follows the same formula as a gazillion B-westerns from the 30's. Thankfully John Wayne was hooked up with some decent studios which, for an extra like 60 or 70 production dollars per picture compared to lesser studios, turned out decent, almost hour-long films that make for a short, fun watch. But what's really interesting about this one is, well, uhh, nothing really. It's just a young 27-28 year old Duke versus the older, gruff, tough Duke in so many of his films from the 40's onward. Basically this is just your average B-western. Since it stars John Wayne it definitely gets a slightly higher score than most.