Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

dbborroughs John Wayne's father is killed by a half breed cattle rustler and his gang. Wayne gives chase and ends up confused for the same bad guy by a sheriff looking into the attack on a girl and her grandfather. Wayne is cleared and he continues the search. One of the best of Wayne's Lone Star Westerns. It starts at the start and runs all of the way to the end with no side trips into silliness or romance (Many of these films get side tracked for a third or more of the running time where it distracts from the main narrative thrust). Its full of action and possesses a couple of neat twists. There is a really good kicker towards the end that makes the film worth seeing. If the film has any flaw it's that the film is lacking a music score which makes the pacing seem off, its not since the film tears through its 50 odd minute run time at a good clip. If you're going to try one of the Lone Star films, try this one.

keesha45 So what can you say about a film that has the villain hamming it up with a lousy Mexican accent, an opening that has an atrocious editing job(mixing day and night footage in the same scene)and a dumb sheriff who wants to arrest the wrong man and botches his handcuffing of the real villain? For all its faults, it's actually not too bad. The chase scenes actually are quite good, with realistic falls from horseback by the girl and the villain in separate sequences. In real life, galloping over rough terrain, often with people shooting at one another, would cause those spills frequently. Once you get past the horrendous opening, Archie Stout's photography is pretty good for a B movie. I especially liked the desert foot-chase scene, with the towering basalt cliffs of Red Rock Canyon in the background. All told, the action sequences and sometimes stunning photography kept this and other John Wayne potboilers from being dull and gave depression-era audiences their money's worth, which was what made B westerns so popular in the first place. Just like audiences back then did, I sat back and enjoyed the ride, bumpy though it may be at times. Dale Roloff

bkoganbing The most die-hard worshippers of John Wayne will cringe when they watch The Lawless Frontier. Even for a poverty row studio, this one is one stinkeroo.Unusual for a western we have a criminal who is a sex crime perpetrator. Earl Dwire plays a halfbreed white and Indian who for reasons that are not explained, pretends he's a Mexican, hokey accent and all. Dwire sounds like the Frito Bandito of advertising fame back in the day.He and his gang happen upon Gabby Hayes and his daughter Sheila Terry. They really don't have anything worth robbing, but Dwire just wants an excuse to kidnap Terry and have his way with her. She hears the dastardly fate she has in store and she and Hayes flee the ranch. Where they happen to meet John Wayne who's on the trail of the bandits. They also run into one very stupid sheriff who believes Wayne is one of the bandits. Again for reasons I can't quite fathom.It was a tough way to earn a living grinding out horse operas like these for the Duke. Fortunately better things were on the way.

classicsoncall Even die hard John Wayne fans will have to concede that this film is a mess. Wayne's character, John Tobin is after the gang that killed his parents, led by half Apache, half white renegade Pandro Zanti (Earl Dwire), posing as a Mexican. There are almost too many silly plot points to count, but those that stand out include Sheriff Williams (Jack Rockwell) cuffing a captured Zanti around his boot, so all Zanti has to do to get free is remove his boot! Tobin's friend Dusty (George pre-Gabby Hayes) takes a thrown knife in the back, and comes back good as new for the rest of the story. In a chase scene, Tobin rides a makeshift log flume through a drainage trough surrounded by log walls in the middle of a desert, and missing his mark, chases (actually walks after) Zanti on foot through the desert. Zanti seeks relief and drinks from a pool of water, but OOPS!, he didn't see the sign above the waterhole that states "Don't Drink Poison". As Zanti collapses dead, Tobin resumes his chase after the remainder of the gang, and captures the whole lot by blowing up a rock wall that seals a secret passage into Dusty's cabin - how convenient.In the closing scene, the new Sheriff Tobin is seen on the phone talking to the new Mrs. Tobin (Sheila Terry), Dusty's daughter Ruby, who earlier in the film was a kidnap target of Zanti's gang. Apparently, the studio was intent on Wayne's getting the girl in virtually every film they made with him, as this type of ending is completely predictable for almost all of Lone Star's films.