The Desert Trail

1935

Western

6
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 22% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 22% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.2/10 10 1119 1.1K

frontier justice rodeo cowboy

Director

Lewis D. Collins Photo
Lewis D. Collins

Top cast

John Wayne Photo
John Wayne as John Scott posing as John Jones
Herman Hack Photo
Herman Hack as Posse Rider
Theodore Lorch Photo
Theodore Lorch as Robbed Stage Passenger
Mary Kornman Photo
Mary Kornman as Anne
720p.WEB
511.25 MB
1280*950
English 2.0
NR
us  
30 fps
12 hr 55 min
Seeds 7

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by classicsoncall 4 / 10

"Get out of here, I want this thing to be legal."

Reviewed by FightingWesterner 6 / 10

Beginning Of Wayne's Famous Comedic Horseplay

Rodeo star John Wayne and his hard-gambling sidekick are forced to take Wayne's winnings from a crooked promoter. After they leave with the cash, two thieves murder the promoter and frame them for the killing. However, the boys are too busy chasing after a young Spanish woman and a pretty shop girl to try and clear their names!Coming near the end of Wayne's contract with Lone Star/Monogram Pictures, this is more spare than some of the earlier films in the series. It's still a lot of fun (and funny) with more comedy in this than usual, resulting in some very amusing scenes like the one where Duke leers at the shop girl's backside!The comedy here is reminiscent somewhat of the slapstick in Wayne's later films.
Reviewed by frankfob 4 / 10

One of Wayne's better early westerns

This early John Wayne Lone Star western has a bit more going for it than the run-of-the-mill oaters Wayne had been making for Lone Star up until that time. For one, it has his old friend Paul Fix in it; Fix, being a much better actor then the standard Lone Star villain, brings a much needed professionalism to the surroundings instead of the usual hesitant line-readings often delivered in these oaters. The plot, about mistaken identity, payroll robbery and murder, is as trite and perfunctory as you'd expect it to be in a 1930s low-budget western, but Wayne's strapping good looks, easygoing charm and way with a line go a long way to making this more enjoyable. Plump, balding Eddy Chandler isn't quite believable as Wayne's womanizing "partner", and there's a running gag about something that happens whenever Chandler and Wayne are about to get into a fistfight that grows tiresome. On the other hand, Wayne's love interest is played by none other than Mary Kornman, the little "Mary" of the early "Little Rascals" fame. She is a grown-up 20-year-old now, blonde and cute as a button. Most of Wayne's leading ladies in these Lone Star/Monogram "B's" were fairly bland and colorless, but Mary is perky, cute and, yes, sexy. There's a scene in the general store, where she works, in which Wayne asks her to get him a bottle of "nerve tonic", which happens to be on the top shelf, so she has to get a ladder and climb up to the top shelf. Wayne's ogling of her pert little backside as she ascends the steps, then again as she comes down, then again a few minuter later when he asks her to climb up and get him another bottle, is surprisingly racy for a film made in 1935. Wayne makes no attempt at all to hide the fact that he is definitely checking out her butt. It's surprising that this got past the Hays Office censors, but they were probably more concerned with the product that came out of the "main" studios rather than a cheap "B" western from some--as far as they were concerned--no-name outfit.Anyway, it's an interesting little "B", not great but not as choppy and disorganized as many of his Lone Star productions of the time. The final gunfight isn't handled all that well, and Chandler gets somewhat irritating after a while, but all in all, it's worth a look, if only to see a cute and sexy Mary Kornman.
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