Awesome Movie

An Exercise In Nonsense

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

John Wayne and Gabby Hayes team up to take on bandit and (for some unexplained reason) fake Mexican, Pandro Zanti. What a name. Anyway, Wayne is out for revenge because Zanti killed his parents in the film's opening scene. Gabby Hayes also has a pretty daughter, played by Sheila Terry. Zanti's eyes bulge out when he first sees her so you can assume what that means. Hayes and Terry live in a ramshackle old place yet they manage to have a secret passageway behind a cabinet. There's also a deeply stupid sheriff to complicate things for our hero. Pretty corny stuff, for the most part. As with most of the B westerns Wayne did for Lone Star around this time, the highlight is the stuntwork of Yakima Canutt. Animal lovers prepare yourselves there's some rough-looking stunts for the horses in this one.

One of the other reviewers was right--this film was horribly edited--as if by a blind guy on crack! I assume this was NOT how the film was originally released--as even for a low-budget B-movie it was pretty shabby. In addition, some knuckle-heads at Fox-Lorber decided to 'improve' this public domain film by adding a new musical track--a musical track that was just god-awful. The instruments are new and very electronic, the music was used indiscriminately (and often inappropriately) and it was the exact same track used in many John Wayne B-westerns--exactly the same! It was just dreadful but you can't blame the people at Lone Star Pictures who made the film."The Lawless Frontier" was a below average Wayne outing--mostly due to the terribly dumb Sheriff--no one can be that dumb or incompetent! An outlaw named Zanti is posing as a Mexican--why, I have no idea. The main problem with catching him is that the local Sheriff is an idiot and seems to have no desire to do anything. Naturally, Wayne will save the day.The only pluses for this film are the wonderful stunts--even better than you'd normally see in these Wayne B-films. A few of the stunts were just stunning and you have to see them to believe them. But, a dumb villain and Sheriff, a stabbing that somehow leaves Gabby feeling a-o.k. and some choppy elements to the film make this very tough to watch. If you do want to see it, download it from IMDb for free--it's much better than seeing the yecchy version by Fox-Lorber shown on the Encore Channel.

"John Tobin" (John Wayne) is on the hunt of the killer of his father (Earl Dwire), who kidnaps a young woman (Sheila Terry). Now, John has to save the young woman, while trying to prove he is not a member of the outlaw's gang to the bumbling sheriff, who also accuses him for killing the girl's father.This is one of the worst 1930's movies I've seen. I spent more time looking away from my computer screen than watching the actual movie.The first problem is the length of the film. It completely rushed the story, which was hard to follow at times. It also gave no chance of the characters to develop.Everybody in the cast seemed to have been forced together, and did not get the chance to develop any chemistry.A good chunk of this movie deals with "Tobin" chasing the villain. In fact, a good chunk of the entire 50 minutes was a horse chase. The villain was horrible, and I did not feel any hate toward him. I didn't even believe his accent.Surprisingly, Wayne was not good in this movie. I believe this was early in his career, and it showed. He was not leading man material in this one. He didn't even have chemistry with any of the other performers.Due to the age of this film, the audio was not great. It made the dialog nearly impossible to hear at times. There were times that you couldn't understand anything that was said. You also had the source of the sound go to almost a whisper as it moved away from the microphone.If you are a John Wayne fan, check this out if you see it on the Westerns channel, but only if there is nothing else on.

John's parents are killed by a renegade bandit, played to the hilt by perennial bad guy, Earl Dwire. Dwire injures Hayes, who joins with John to bring him and his gang to justice.The local sheriff, Jack Rockwell, is convinced that John's one of the gang, and when Hayes is shot, arrests John for the shooting.There are the usual chases, gun battles, and fights that hallmark these "B" Westerns. There is one extended walking scene where you can see the Duke perfecting his special walk that became a trademark.An excellent stunt has John riding a log down a large drainage ditch. Pretty amazing, and not without danger to the actor.Beware though, the DVD copy looks as if they took the print from an Extended Play (EP) VHS copy. Very disappointing, but, a classic from John Wayne.