A bit short on Terror but still fun
John Wayne, 28, is a young sheriff, John Higgins, in Texas Terror.
Chasing some Dastardly Robbers, he shoots into a cabin and upon rushing in
thinks he has shot dead his friend, a rancher (though it was the DRs that did
it). He resigns, grows a beard and becomes a recluse in the woods, befriended
by Black Eagle and his tribe. No one knows who played Black Eagle but his
performance was a masterpiece of bad acting.
I think that's supposed to be John Wayne on the right
Then one day the dead rancher’s daughter (Lucile
Browne, twelve Westerns 1930 - 37) arrives on the stage. The stage is attacked.
Nothing unusual for a B-Western there, you may say. But hold! For the stage is
a Model T with the word STAGE painted on it. The driver is killed by the
bandits and bearded John, scooping up the damsel, takes the wheel and speeds
into town.
Duke romances Lucile
For the further ramifications of this gripping plot
you will have to watch the movie.
There’s a lot of rather odd staring into the camera
and saying lines slowly, presumably ordained by B-Western specialist, director
RN Bradbury (who also wrote the story). The dialogue is wooden and the delivery
of the lines by the actors equally so. The music is desperately old-fashioned;
just like a silent movie.
There’s a Hallowe’en dance with a Virginia reel and a
milking contest won by Aunt Martha (Fern Emmett). Gripping stuff, you will
think, and I bet you can’t wait to buy the DVD. I hope they haven’t censored it
by cutting out the scenes of gratuitous cow-milking, though.
The baddy, Dickson, looks a
bit like Richard Nixon. He is played by Leroy Mason.
Richard Nixon Leroy Mason
One of his cronies is
played by Buffalo Bill Jr. (Wilbert Jay Wilsey). Yakima Canutt does
the stunts, of course, though he doesn’t appear as an actor as he did in many
of these Lone Star pictures. The already bearded Gabby Hayes, who accompanied
Wayne in Westerns throughout the 1930s, is the sheriff who takes over from him once
Wayne has grown his own beard.
Sheriff Gabby
Wayne’s beard soon goes, however, as he shapes up and
becomes the ranch foreman. He wears an unDukelike and rather dudish gunbelt. He
does, however, exhibit that dandy roundhouse punch with both his right and his
left. Quite impressive. A very handy addition to your armory in your next
saloon bar fight.
Archie Stout was behind the camera again, though
uncredited.
In the end a sidekick delivers himself of the opinion
which you doubtless share, “Women are sure queer critters”.
But perhaps, because
it all comes right and John gets the gal
and all the misunderstandings are cleared up, champion milker Aunt Martha sums
it all up best by saying, “Like this fellow Spearshake says, ‘All’s well that
ends well’.”
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