Winds of the Wasteland
Directed by Mack V. Wright
Written by Joseph F. Poland
1936/USA
Republic Pictures
First viewing
[box]Larry Adams: Who ever heard of sending messages over a piece of wire?[/box]
This otherwise forgettable B Western again demonstrates John Wayne’s innate star power.
The pony express is shutting its doors and rider John Blair (Wayne) must find a new line of work. He decides to start a stagecoach line. Evil Cal Drake sells him a stagecoach and one of his lines – which goes to a ghost town, population 2. Not to be deterred, Blair single-handedly resurrects the town and prepare to compete with Drake in a race to win a lucrative government mail contract. The rest should be obvious. Plenty of fist fights and gun battles and a little humor. No winds; no wasteland.
Among the many actors in this who appear to be reading their lines for the first time, Wayne is completely natural. Although I never agreed with his politics, in later years I have had to admit that the Duke definitely had something.
Clip – stagecoach battle (colorized – I was able to watch in black and white)
I love to watch John Wayne’s transition from these “B” westerns to the big time. I guess “”Stagecoach” was the turning point toward stardom but he had to pay his dues in little films like this one. Haven’t seen it but if you have seen one of these, you have seen them all.
It’s funny that John Wayne didn’t become a star of The Big Trail back in 1930. He was very good in that and it was an “A” picture. Maybe he kind of got stereotyped into Westerns and his kind of Westerns were almost exclusively B films until Ford brought them into the mainstream?