I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Even for John Wayne's legendarily weak Lone Star westerns, this one's a real turkey.Wayne plays John Travers, who takes over as sheriff of the terrorized town of Little Rock after a horse-stealing, stage-robbing mastermind known as "The Shadow" kills the last "star-packing" lawman. With the help of his Indian partner Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers investigates how the Shadow operates and leads a gang of locals against him.Dan Phillips makes a great point in his review here. Early in the movie, we see Yak tell Travers "two men going to hold up stage... Coyote Canyon...much money on stage." So what does Travers do? He holds up the stage himself, disarms the guard riding shotgun, a guy named Joe, and rides off with the loot, leaving the disarmed guard and driver to be shot by the hold-up men, the guard fatally. Travers only rides in after the hold-up men ride off, to save the driver and the pretty girl Anita (Verna Hillie) on the stage.What the heck!We are told early on by rancher Matt Matlock (George – not yet Gabby – Hayes), that the Shadow "has absolutely no regard for human life." That apparently holds true for Travers as well, who shares a laugh with Anita after the shooting death of poor Joe. Sure, he foiled the robbery by stealing the money, but why couldn't he and Yak have hung around and stopped the stage robbery by riding up on the bad guys from behind?You aren't supposed to ask questions with these sorts of films, made for young boys who craved adventure. But I'm pretty sure they were bright enough to wonder about Travers, too. Later in the film, Travers leads a captured baddie to a wall safe from which the Shadow gives his orders. Travers is only a few feet away from the guy, separated by an open safe door. Why not grab the Shadow then and there?The only explanation we get is given at the start of the movie, by Yak: "More trouble, more fun." If Travers stopped the Shadow then, he wouldn't have had another chance to save Anita from a runaway wagon."The Star Packer" does have a lot of stunts. I counted five horse spills effected by trip-wires, those things that the ASPCA finally put a stop to which killed many of the horses. They made the horses fall end-over-end, risking broken necks and legs. You don't really need them, and other Lone Star westerns don't use them nearly so often. Here, director Robert N. Bradbury was taking no chances. He knew he had a bore of a story on his hands, and must have counted on the stunts to liven things up.The usual Lone Star gang is in evidence here, including Canutt and Hayes playing on opposite sides of the law, though not the same sides their characters were usually on. Earl Dwire, a personal favorite, is a bad guy here, like he was half the time in these movies, as a villain who sneers "We'll be outta here by noon tomorrow" when Travers puts him behind bars.Wayne is more wooden here than normal, and kind of dull, unusually so for him. He generates zero chemistry with Hillie and seems ready to move on to his next on-screen adventure. The film moves so predictably that I can't blame him. Even with a town interestingly tricked-up with hollowed logs and secret passages, everything moves in such a slow fashion you don't care how it ends, just so it does.Will Travers save the town and win the girl? I could have cared less. All I could do was think of poor Joe and those horses. They deserved better. So do you.

Suspecting that a stagecoach carrying money is about to be ambushed by bandits "John Travers" (John Wayne) decides to rob the stage first and then quickly rides off. When the bandits arrive only minutes later and discover that there is no money they shoot both the driver and the guard and then let the stagecoach drive out-of-control with a young woman passenger by the name of "Anita Matlock" (Verna Hillie) still in the cabin. Fortunately, John Travers manages to catch up to the stagecoach before any harm comes to her. Once they ride into the nearby town it's learned that 2 sheriffs have been killed by these bandits who are led by a man known only as "The Shadow". And then the 3rd sheriff is shot and killed as well which causes John Travers to volunteer to become the next one. At any rate, rather than detail any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that although it's quite short (only 53 minutes) it managed to condense enough of the story to turn out an okay little western all the same. Obviously, it's not the best John Wayne movie ever made but those who enjoy his movies might want to give this one a try too. That said I rate it as about average.

I really liked this early John Wayne picture,, he teams up with Gabby Hayes, and Yakuma Cannut. going against type,, George "Gabby" Hayes plays the bad guy in this film,,, the local sheriff meats his demise,, and his friend, played by the Duke, takes on the role of the local sheriff, he teams up with his Indian partner,, played by Cannut . together they go after "The Shadow".. the find a secret command center underneath a fake covering of some sorts in the street behind a wall or something like that,, and it's the command center for all of the Shadow's activity,, love the scene where the Duke is chasing the bad guy on horseback while the villain is going downstream in a canoe,, very decent early John Wayne film.

I watched the beginning twice, could NOT make sense of it, and it bothered me for the whole movie.So, work this out with me: Wayne (the GOOD guy) jumps on the stagecoach, disarms the drivers (!), steals the money (?!), and takes off.Disarmed, one driver is then killed and the other wounded by the bad guys. Thanks to Wayne, who disarmed them, and then watched it happen.Then Wayne drops the money in the dirt, rescues the girl, rides into town, chuckles it up with Yak (too bad about the dead guy, I guess)...and then later says he "found" the money back at the scene. And everyone's okay with that.And he's the good guy? And I'm pretty sure there weren't small, hand-held flashlights at the time. And Bell did his first phone demo in 1876... were they in houses then? Am I thinking too hard about this one? Normally, I'm happy to suspend judgment to enjoy a movie, but this one bothered me. And that's a sign the move didn't really work for me.