Too much of everything

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

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This was one of John Wayne's final film roles before getting his big break-out in the same year's "Stagecoach" directed by John Ford. He appeared in eight 'Mesquiteers' flicks for Republic, six of them with Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune, followed by two more with Corrigan and Ray Hatton. What I found unusual about this story was how introspective the writing was, almost like a Warner Brothers film of the era in which they tackled a serious social problem. In this case it was the scheming villainy of a local town boss selling jobs for political favors and campaign contributions, in some cases driving poverty stricken ranchers even deeper into a hole.Throughout the story, the Mesquiteers acquitted themselves well as stand up guys, as evidenced by Stoney Brooke's (Wayne) covering for Irene Parker's (Pamela Blake) theft of twenty dollars from his own wallet, or when Rusty Joslin (Hatton) paid Will Parker (Red Barry) as a trail hand even though he wasn't allowed to join the drive by a dutiful forest ranger for alleged violation of game laws. As Parker, Don Barry evokes a genuine sympathy from the viewer for fighting against the odds and constantly coming up short, often through no fault of his own. In fact, when he expresses his concern to a newsman near the end of the story, the comeback from the reporter is stated as "Sort of radical, aren't you"? The political connotation in the reporter's reaction caught me somewhat by surprise.Say, here's something that caught my eye when the Mesquiteers stopped in town to have some lunch. The menu offered up hamburger steak for thirty cents, beef strip for twenty three cents, corned beef and cabbage for thirty cents, and pounded steak for forty cents. I was wondering what a pounded steak was and marveling at those prices when I really got blown away by a sign that announced that dessert was included in the meal!!! How's that for a bargain! Then there was this sign posted on the outside of a building that encouraged voters in the coming election to 'Keep Your Friends In Office"! That provided another telling moment in the story when Will Parker's father refused to participate in graft and corruption to keep Joe Balsinger (Leroy Mason) in office by collecting campaign contributions for him from neighboring ranchers. The story really made you sympathize for the little guy who faced loss of work and starvation if he didn't play along with the system.With the way the story was headed, the thing that surprised me most was the way in which it ended. With Will Parker hanging on to his dignity by a thread, he takes outlaw Balsinger hostage, and in the confrontation with the town folk, both Balsinger and Parker are shot dead. It wasn't your traditional satisfactory ending and left you with a tinge of melancholy that things didn't work out for the guy who tried and couldn't make it. For a B Western, this one could have been a feature with a little more effort.

Wyoming Outlaw (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The Three Mesquiteers (w/John Wayne) are trying to save the life of a Robin Hood type (Donald Barry) who has taken it upon himself to try and bring down a town dictator who is forcing the poor to pay for jobs and has banned hunting so that they can't eat. This film in the series is really no better or worse than any other "B" Western but it does have a strong benefit of featuring a terrific performance by Barry who easily steals the show. He manages to be a very likable Robin Hood character and also gets mounds of sympathy due to Barry's performance. The rest is all pretty much standard stuff but having seen over one hundred Wayne films I must say his weakest fight is in this film, which includes him fighting a beanpole of a man who's probably two feet shorter than him.

Although the acting on the part of some of the supporting cast is a bit raw what I really liked it how real the outlaws looked, scraggly hair and beards, missing teeth, etc. Just wondering if that's how they look in real life??? Some of them look as though they really are outlaws or maybe homeless people they found on the street. The special affects were especially cheesy but probably and innovation at the time. Such as the snow, isn't that what our TV screens look like when the cable's out? This is one of the first John Wayne black and white's I have seen since my beginning days of watching his movies. I would rate this as my second favorite in the black and whites.

Part of this movie is available on DVD in Germany (I paid EUR4). In around 1977, the German ZDF TV channel produced a serial "Western von gestern" with episodes of around 25 minutes length, for which they also remoulded several early John Wayne movies, like this. You of course just get less than half of the images, with a completely new soundtrack (including new music) in German. I liked the "culture shock": at first, people rode around on horses like we're used to, but suddenly in the manhunt scene, radio broadcasting cars of around 1930 fill the screen. Later, the outlaw hitches a car ride and steals the car to go back to town :^)