Good concept, poorly executed.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There's a short list of films where John Wayne's character dies. I don't think "West Of The Divide" is on that list, but look again.In the opening five minutes, we watch a man collapse after drinking from a poison water hole. A close up reveals him to be none other than John Wayne. Less than a minute later, he's dead.Don't worry: That's not a spoiler. John Wayne is playing two characters in this movie. One, Gatt Gans, is a deadly outlaw who, as mentioned, winds up just dead. The other, Ted Hayden, happens to look like Gans, which Hayden discovers after lifting a wanted poster off Gans's corpse. It turns out Gans was en route to perform a hired killing, and it just so happens Hayden has some unfinished business with the hombre behind it."Maybe fate's kinda taken a hand in this deal," Hayden observes, before telling his pal Dusty (George "not yet Gabby" Hayes) that he'll pretend to be this bozo with the identical kisser.Fate indeed takes a hand in "West Of The Divide," a mighty heavy one, too. "West Of The Divide" is practically nothing but fate taking a hand.A couple of scenes on, a young woman rides away from two bandits. She falls off her horse and hides in a barn. A few moments later, the bandits ride by and happen to get into a fight over losing her. One pulls out a gun, and in the scuffle unknowingly wings her with a bullet. Minutes later, while she's bleeding dangerously close to death, Hayden and Dusty just happen to decide to bunk down in the same barn. Dusty discovers some blood, and well...That's not even mentioning the little boy who happens to have his own connection to Hayden's past, and happens to be associated with the group of baddies who happen to be after the woman and her money, and happens to pick just the right moment to lift some bullets from someone's gun...As much as it happens to reek of plot convenience, "West Of The Divide" also offers some memorably weak acting. The father, the chief villain, the woman, all play their roles with wooden stiffness. Even Hayes lacks his typical elan.Wayne by contrast is terrific, whether making friends with the boy or delivering some long and pointless exposition to Dusty about how Dusty saved him when he was a boy ("Anyway, it won't do you no good, livin' this all over again," says Dusty after stringing out Hayden's tale for five long minutes.) Wayne also grimaces with believable anger when he catches up with someone he's been after for a long time. Given the material, it would have been understandable if Wayne had just gone through the motions, but he really inhabits the part. It's a foretaste of what he would do with better roles in the not-so-distant future, though he didn't always perform as well as this in his B-picture days.The stunts here are solid, too. One involves a man standing on a runaway buckboard as it disintegrates around him, maybe the coolest stunt in the whole Wayne run of Lone Star pictures.When I wasn't watching Wayne, I was mostly just bored with this. Director Robert N. Bradbury maintains his characteristically slow pace, making all the silly fate twists he throws at you easier to notice. The Lone Star pictures were meant for casual viewing, and by younger viewers, but even with the bar lowered so it seems somehow not quite low enough for this dull oater.For Wayne completists only who want to see him in a rare double role, and playing a bad guy, too. Just don't go anywhere for the first five minutes. After that, though, there's little point sticking around.

Like a slew of other John Wayne B-westerns shown on the Encore Channel, this one has a 'new and improved' musical track created, I assume, by the Fox Lorber company who distributed it. Frankly, the music is obviously new but not the least bit improved over the normal public domain copies of this film you can download for free. The problems with the music are many. First, the same sound track is used in many of the Wayne films--the exact same music. Second, the music is often dropped into scenes like a sledgehammer with little appreciation of whether or not it's appropriate! Third, being modern electronic music, it's totally inappropriate to the film. Fourth, the music is much louder and hollow-sounding than the rest of the film--and quite distracting.For fans of Westerns, you may or may not recognize Gabby Hayes in this one. Early in his B-movie days, he had not yet solidified his old coot persona--and his beard is absent here. I wasn't surprised, as I've seen him play villains and erudite gentlemen around this same time period--but those familiar with his days as Roy Rogers' sidekick might be surprised by his earlier personas.The starts out horribly. Wayne and Hayes are sitting by fire having a conversation that would never happen in real life. Instead of talking like two normal folks, they do a lengthy exposition where they explain the back story in only a few moments--as if they are reading a script. As I said, no one talks that way--especially when both the characters are supposed to already be familiar with what they are talking about--as it involved them! This is sloppy screen writing at its worst and was a device used to avoid the 'unnecessary' addition of a couple more moments of dialog and action to set the same foundation for the film. And, considering that these Wayne films all were under one hour long, such gimmicks for economy sake weren't that uncommon...but it's still sloppy. And, naturally, you can assume that what follows will all relate to this back story involving the murder of Wayne's father.Soon afterwords, John and Gabby come upon a woman who was accidentally shot a bit earlier. They cart her off to town for medical attention. I loved the next scene where the doctor says that they got her there just in time, as she had a severed artery. There is no way she could have survived this long with such a serious wound (she probably would have died within minutes). And, I loved when the doctor then said the wound wasn't very serious!! Crazy! I would love to know who was the medical consultant for this film....Dr. Hackenbush, perhaps?! Like "Randy Rides Alone" (also John Wayne, 1934), this film soon involves a gang and their efforts to steal land away from a nice young lady and her father. Naturally, the chivalrous Wayne will help girl and in the process catch those who killed his Pa. The only noticeable difference is that, for once, in this film Wayne is dressed in black...a departure from the usual cliché of a hero in white.Along the way, Wayne saves the life of a kid and sees that the kid's father is a bit of a sadistic brute. Naturally, the way to deal with this is to beat the snot out of him--which Wayne does with surprising difficulty considering the guy looked old and a bit pudgy. Wayne remarks that this guy's face is familiar....could it be this guy has a clue as to the identity of the gang who killed Dad?! Gosh! Aside from the black hat and a nearly clean-shaven Hayes, there really are no surprises here. In fact, compared to Wayne's other B-movies, this one is definitely a few notches below them--mostly because of the quality of the script. Sure, I can accept the formulaic aspects of the movie--heck, this is what you expect in a B-western. But everything is telegraphed and presented so poorly--that's why this one is so atrociously written. It's a shame, as with a bit of a re-write, this could have been a lot more watchable--though re-writes was a luxury not usually afforded to Bs.By the way, in addition to the dippy doctor, I also liked when the rancher told Wayne and Hayes that he'd phoned the Sheriff! Such bizarre anachronisms set in the old West were not actually that uncommon in films of the genre. Heck, Gene Autry often had such plot devices in his films--such as chasing the guys on horseback using a pickup truck!!

Pretty tame Lone Star fare, not up to later standards. Nothing much distinguishes this 60 minutes of sagebrush opera. The plot is easy to follow-- Wayne assumes a false identity in order to bring his father's killer to justice. In the process he rescues an old rancher and his daughter from the clutches of a ruthless land grabber and unexpectedly finds a brother. Unfortunately, the locations are nondescript, not much stunt work or hard riding, while the outlaw gang gives up without the usual fight. Also, there's no real personality or color to compensate for the general absence of excitement. Hayes and Canutt too are largely wasted. Perhaps the high point is a lengthy fist-fight that doesn't quite follow the usual formula in outcome. All in all, however, a definitely sub-standard Wayne Western.

An average Lone Star film -- built on convenient coincidences (Gat Gann just happens to walk into the scene and dies, and, as luck would have it, just happens to bear a letter of introduction to the man, "Gantry" who, as fate would have it, just happens to have killed John "Ted" Wayne's father and for whom Ted goes to work because Ted just happens to look just like Gannon in his "Wanted" poster, etc., etc.) and clichés. Interesting for: 1) the stunt work of Yakima Cannutt-- riding a buckboard hitch with a boy on his back,and later diving through a window from a horse; 2) the child abuse theme that culminates in John Wayne's heartfelt hugging of young "Spud" at the end. Other than that, not much here, even by Lone Star standards. No real character development, except for John Wayne's passionate presence; George Hayes just chews tobacco.