Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

John Wayne's extremely low budget features of the mid 1930's are an entertaining mix of various western themes that are often repetitive, yet never boring. In the case of "Winds of the Wasteland", he is the sucker who buys a stagecoach of the practically vacant ghost town of Crescent City. But when Duke's the hero, he's bound to get revenge in the most clever way, and here, it is the rebuilding of that community and the race to get a government grant to deliver the mail through their stagecoach. Lane Chandler is his "Gabby" Hayes like sidekick who humorously finds an interesting intruder into the stagecoach when they first come across the decrepit vehicle. Of course, there's a young lady involved, and she's Phyllis Fraser, the big-city raised daughter of Crescent City's doctor who has lied to her in the mail over the city's population. Lots of humor (especially the delight of the town's mayor/sheriff/drug store operator at doubling the town's population from 2 to 4!) fills up the short running time as Wayne cleverly goes up against the bad guys who commit a lot of nefarious actions in order to keep Wayne from winning the race. The result is an entertaining programmer that Duke fans will want to watch again and again.

An end of the era is coming. The Pony Express is nearing an end as the telegraph line is about to be put up, making the way the mail was delivered for years obsolete.Two Pony Express riders (John Wayne, Lane Chandler) decide to go into the stagecoach business, with the Pony Express horses that were given to them and other riders as a gift of thanks for their service. The two ask the owner of the local stagecoach service (Douglas Cosgrove) if they could purchase one of his older stagecoaches. However, he offers them their own franchise to a city almost an hour away, Crescent City.The two travel to the small city, only to realize they were tricked. Turns out that the city is rundown, and has only two residents."John Blair" (Wayne) decides it's not worth accepting the offer for the franchise, but the mayor of the city (Lew Kelly), who has a lot of other jobs in the city, informs him that the United States government is offering a contract to deliver the mail in the area via stage coach. As long as they win a race with other stage coach services in the area.At one point, "Blair" comes across the team putting up the telegraph wires for the area, and gets them to agree to bring the telegraph to Crescent City, and a much needed boost to the population.Word gets to "Cal Drake" (Cosgrove), who makes plans to sabotage the Crescent City line's chances in winning that contract.Now, "Blair" has to win the contract -- and try to keep the new residence of Crescent City there.The first problem with this movie is the length. It's almost 56 minutes long, and doesn't feel like a movie at all. However, it's got some pretty good performances that make it interesting enough to keep your attention.I can't remember how many early Wayne movies I've seen lately, but, as with all the previous ones, I think Wayne has the strongest performance in the film. The others are pretty memorable as well, with Phyllis Fraser with the weakest performance as the daughter of one of the original two Crescent City residents.One of the biggest problems this movie has, most likely due to the length of it, is character development. Many supporting characters had very little development. You get to meet them, and how they play in the story, but not much more. The movie basically focuses on Wayne's character, which doesn't give the supporting cast any screen time to advance any subplots they are a part of.One of those subplots that was completely missed was the romantic subplot between "Barbara Forsythe" (Fraser) and both of the lead actors. There is no story that describes how she appears to go after one of them, but ends up with the other.The soundtrack to the movie sounded to me like a early TV Western. Nothing when it came to music stood out at all. Even the music during the only fist fight in the entire film was pretty bad. This soundtrack will not go down as one of the greatest scores in movie history.Due to the time this film was made, the special effects are not done by a computer, and are, at best, OK. In scenes where the two characters are riding on the stagecoach, it is obvious that they are in front of a movie screen. But, this simplistic effect works real well.The movie is mainly shot outdoors. But, none of the scenes are memorable. There are a few horse chases, and the stage coach race that are shot fairly nicely. And the shots during the race where they go from the race to close-ups on stagecoach mock ups in front of a movie screen are edited together smoothly.Despite the flaws of this movie, this is not a bad movie. I would not put it in your must-see list, but you should check it out if you see it on Encore Westerns, and there is nothing better to do. In fact, it's currently on Hulu right now, which is how I watched it.I would also check it out if you are a fan of John Wayne. It will show you that he was destined for his legendary status in Hollywood.

John Wayne appeared in sixteen Westerns for Paul Malvern's Lone Star/Monogram Pictures, and stayed on for eight more films when the group merged with Republic in 1935. "Winds of the Wasteland" was the last one of these, and would be Wayne's final Western for a couple of years while working on six pictures for Universal in 1936/37. It's a lively story that teams The Duke up with Lane Chandler; they only appeared together once before in Lone Star's "Sagebrush Trail". With the dissolution of the Pony Express, the boys decide to form a stage line with the horses they receive in gratitude for their service.Wayne's character is John Blair, and along with Larry Adams (Chandler), the boys are quickly hoodwinked into buying a stagecoach route from Buchanan to Crescent City. The first sign of trouble comes when the signboard for Crescent City's population reads '2', ever since villain Cal Drake (Douglas Cosgrove) had a falling out with Doc Forsythe (Sam Flint), with the population of the town following him to Buchanan. It's a set up that doesn't make too much sense, but if you stay with it, you'll see that Blair stays one step ahead of Drake at every turn to revitalize Crescent City and win a government subsidy of twenty five thousand dollars.For those familiar with the work of stuntman extraordinaire Yakima Canutt, you'll recognize what might be considered a very early tryout for the chariot race in "Ben-Hur" some two decades later. The seeds of that epic movie scene might have been planted here with the thrilling stagecoach race to Sacramento between Blair and Drake. Blair outwits the villain's chicanery to win by a little more than a nose, thereby winning the government grant, along with Doc Forsythe's pretty daughter Barbara (Phyllis Fraser). In that respect, Wayne's character kept the streak intact of winning the lady's hand at the end of each of his early Westerns.Another reviewer for this film commented on Phyllis Fraser's resemblance to Ginger Rogers. Researching her background reveals that in fact, Fraser was a cousin of Rogers. Even more interesting, she was married to publisher Bennett Cerf for nearly thirty one years until his death in 1971, and then to former New York City mayor Robert Wagner until his death in 1991. Born Helen Nichols Brown, she used the name Phyllis Fraser for her entire film career. I'd be curious to know if the name derived from 'B' Western film director Harry Fraser, who did a couple of Wayne's Lone Star yarns.Anyway, getting back to the film, you should have some fun with this one, as Wayne keeps things upbeat even when he's being railroaded by baddie Drake throughout the story. Lew Kelly adds some comic relief as the mayor/postmaster/treasurer of Crescent City, who maintains a running gag with a skunk (the animal kind, not the human kind). It all comes in at a quick fifty four minute pace, quick enough to grow the population of Crescent from two to over four hundred in a blink. The only thing is, how did they ever come up with that title?

Winds of The Wasteland is a vastly underappreciated film. Having seen most of John Wayne's pre 1939 westerns (including some of his more highly regarded ones such as Randy Rides Alone, Hell Town aka Born To The West, Blue Steel, West Of The Divide, Sagebrush Trail and Riders of Destiny) this is the most entertaining. It has a great story that is well played by the primary actors, though the doctor is a little wooden. Of all Wayne's shorts, I would first recommend this one. Get the colourized version if possible. It may be heretical to say, but the colourized shorts are more enjoyable and most are available.