Amazon.com: John Wayne's road to stardom needed some giddyup in the early 1930s; after a leading-man turn in The Big Trail, he quickly fell into B-movie obscurity. While waiting to vault to first-tier status in 1939's Stagecoach, he honed his talent with a set of six B-Westerns at Warner Brothers, shot in 1932-33. The series allowed Warners to recycle footage (and plots) from a string of silent Westerns made with Ken Maynard, with the young Mr. Wayne stepping into Maynard's saddle. Ride Him, Cowboy is the best of these snappy little films (under an hour each), a very entertaining number in which Wayne is introduced to a feisty horse named, of all things, Duke. Duke would feature in the later films, as would Wayne's harmonica playing. The movie has some wild stunt riding and some very amusing dialogue (someone urges a pokey storyteller, "Skip that part and get down to bedrock"). And for a cheap B-movie, there's some exceptionally inventive camerawork by Ted McCord, who would go on to shoot The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and East of Eden.
Wayne, 25 years old, plays the same naively heroic hero in each of the six films. He's lean and handsome and not yet grown into his talent. But you can see how much the camera likes him--as his future director Howard Hawks might have put it--and how much that famous stride is already coming into step. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Excellent B-Western
It'd be hard to argue that this is a western equal to THE SEARCHERS or STAGECOACH, but as a B-western, it's one of the best I've seen. Compared to Wayne's Lone Star films, RIDE HIM, COWBOY is a great ... Read More
Rating: - A Quickie from Vitagraph Pictures!
I've always considered it very strange why Wayne's westerns of the 1930's are not given the same sort of revered status that other western stars like Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers received. Sure they're ... Read More
Rating: - The "Duke's" First Starring "B" Western
John Wayne's first starring "B" Western and the first of a series of six made by Warner Bros. may be the best of his "B" Western output. Good direction and production make this one and the entire series ... Read More
- Excellent B-Western
- A Quickie from Vitagraph Pictures!