Overrated

Not even bad in a good way

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

In this "Lone Star" entry, John Wayne is looking for his father's best friend's niece, in "Canada." What makes it stand out is the amazing location photography of Mammoth Lakes and beautiful California! It's watchable just for the scenery! Unfortunately, more time is spent on canoing, chases and fighting than on character development: the heroine is a cypher, and there's no love scene with John Wayne, even though they paddle off into the sunset together. Noah Beery Sr.'s part could have been enlarged; poor Robert Frazer, veteran of over 200 movies and serials, was his usual wooden self, with that phony movie French accent-- his non talents are best displayed in his meaty role as Charles Beaumont in the bizarre "White Zombie" (1931). Earl Dwyer stretches his thespian skills with a matching phony French accent of his own.The story is merely a trifle to fill in the lulls before, between and after the fantastic outdoor sequences. Not the best "Lone Star," but unique in its way as a non-Western Western, and definitely watchable.

By now I've seen most of John Wayne's Westerns for Lone Star Productions, and this one so far ranks just above "The Lawless Frontier" as the poorest of the bunch. Interestingly they were made back to back in 1934 in about the middle of the run, both directed by Robert North Bradbury. Plot points and continuity didn't seem to mean much back then, but you know what, they're still pretty much fun to take a look at every now and then.The story has a Canadian setting for a change, featuring place names like Fort Minnetaki and Wabinosh, along with the prerequisite French accents of the villains. The two main heavies are LaRocque (Robert Frazer) and Benoit (Earl Dwire), and they even have a nasty female accomplice named Marie (Iris Lancaster), who might have been a red herring in Rod Drew's (Wayne) quest to find the missing daughter of a man who died years ago. In the movie's opening scene, the man who sets Drew on his mission surmised that his long lost niece might have been named Marie after her mother.Missing from the credits this time around are Gabby and Yak, so Noah Beery Jr. fills in as Rod Drew's buddy from college, teaming up with each other after Wabi (Beery) is framed for a murder aboard a train. Once on the run, the pair have everything they can do to remain on dry ground. Wayne's character winds up jumping into a river no less than three times including once on horseback.This is the only time I've seen Noah Beery Jr. and Sr. together in a film, though it happened a few times in their careers. The elder Beery runs a trading post in the story, along with his adopted daughter Felice (Verna Hillie). It made me wonder why Newsome (Beery Sr.) offered Marie LaFleur a job to straighten out his books instead of having Felice do it. Just one of those story points that wasn't thought out too well.Another was when Drew and Wabi find the cave with the gold from the map they found in a deserted cabin (complete with skeletons of two former partners who killed each other - nice touch!). One of the dead men from the cabin was Felice's real father, brother of the man who asked Drew to look for his niece. Along with a small sack of gold the men find, there's a photo of an adult Felice just as she appears in the story. How would her father have gotten that picture if he died before she grew up???Keep an eye on the canoe scene when Drew and Wabi leave the cabin with the rescued Mountie. When the Mountie is shot by one of the villains, he falls backwards toward Wabi, but in the very next scene he's lying in the other direction toward Drew.By the time the good guy and bad guy posses head for the finale, I wound up scratching my head as to where all those riders came from. Most of the time LaRocque had only Benoit and another henchman around, but during the shootout he had at least a half dozen. While the Mountie outpost in the middle of the Canadian wilderness only had a handful of men on hand, by the time they rode off with Drew in the lead there were probably a couple dozen riders on the chase.Well I guess that's why it's such a blast watching these early John Wayne oaters, it's fun just to catch all the goofy stuff going on, in addition to the often exciting chase scenes and horse dives off a cliff. This one also boasted some pretty impressive scenery, most notably that mountain valley view when Wabi points out the way to Wabinosh. If you stay alert, you'll also catch some pretty interesting product placement for Buffalo Lager Beer and industrial size Karo Syrup - I wonder if they had to pay for those?

Within the first 10 minutes of The Trail Beyond, John Wayne gets a chore from a friend to locate the friend's friend and his daughter in the Canadian woods, meets another friend Noah Beery, Jr. from college, gets innocently involved in a murder and is fleeing up to Canada with Beery.There's almost as much canoe paddling as horseback riding in The Trail Beyond for our intrepid heroes. They've got to keep on the move from the Mounties who are looking to extradite both of them to America and Wayne's still got his mission on his mind.And if that ain't enough they get involved in a feud between the Hudson Bay Company local trading post owner, Noah Beery Sr. and some French Meti trappers. They're the bad guys and as another reviewer remarked their accents are pretty bad. Like Pepe Le Pew.Other than Island in the Sky, I believe this might be the only John Wayne film with a Canadian location. Even though they got no farther to Canada than the Sierras in California.What this film does give, is an opportunity to see both Noah Beerys, senior and junior in the same film. I saw that they have about seven screen credits jointly and this I believe is the only one available on VHS and DVD. Furthermore for once the senior Beery is not playing a bad guy.So while this one won't even make the top Fifty of John Wayne's films for all those reasons it might be worth a look.

Rod Drew is sent by a friend to locate his long lost daughter Marie, who he believes is in Northwest Canada. En route by train, Drew meets his old friend, a half breed named Wabi, who immediately becomes involved in a murder frame up and the two jump from the train wanted men. Tracking down clues to Marie's whereabouts, Drew and Wabi make their way to an abandoned cabin and find a map that Drew's friend and a partner made, showing the location of a treasure. Wabi takes Drew to a trading post run by Newsome and assisted by his daughter Felice (whom Wabi loves). Benoit, who works as a clerk in Newsome's store, tries to grab the map so he can get the treasure for LaRocque, a trapper and the film's bad man. Noting that Drew and Wabi are wanted men, LaRocque has one of his men kidnap and impersonate a Mountie, and get the map when they arrive back at the cabin, however Drew gives them a fake map, and he, Wabi, and Ryan (the Mountie) go after the treasure, while LaRocque and his men close in on Newsome's cabin to get the map. A very enjoyable B film with what seems like better directing and production values than seen in previous Bradbury films, which probably due to the fact that its based on the Curwood novel, rather than being an original Bradbury story. Nice cinematography highlight the film and overshadow the wooden acting by the entire cast, especially by Frazer and Dwire as the villains. Much of the start of the movie has character introduction which gets the film off on a wrong foot, but the film settles in and becomes enjoyable. Rating, based on B westerns, 7.