Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 15 January 1934 by Monogram Pictures Corp. A Lone Star Western. No New York opening. U.S. release: 6 January 1934. U.K. release through Pathé: 3 December 1934. 6 reels. 56 minutes.SYNOPSIS: A blacksmith and his partner find gold in a creek bed.COMMENT: George Hayes puts on his "Gabby" voice for this one. Even though he doesn't wear the "Gabby" costume and make-up, he does give us a cleverly done old lady impersonation by way of a bonus. But even of more interest than Gabby are two outstanding action chase sequences. Halfway through Wayne jumps for Parker from horseback - but misses. So he literally skates after him down a storm-water channel. The climax finds both our heroes in hot pursuit of the two villains; Wayne on horseback, Hayes in an old jalopy versus Whitlock and Canutt on a speeding rail handcar. The handcar is used not only for thrilling near-misses with the flivver, but as a camera mount for exciting running inserts and tracking shots.Incidentally, in that otherwise excellent book on John Wayne and the Movies by Allen Eyles, the photo purporting to be from The Lucky Texan is wrongly captioned. The still actually shows Wayne, Hayes and Cecilia Parker in Riders of Destiny. Miss Parker is a petite blonde, but Miss Sheldon is smaller in stature and is neither as pretty nor as personable. However, Barbara's role in The Lucky Texan rates as rather inconsequential. Not only does she make a late entrance, but she figures very little in either of the movie's two interconnected stories.The movie suffers from the usual Lone Star defects of "B"-slow pacing and directorial whip pans (used for scene changes) that don't quite work, but Canutt has opportunities not only to act the villain but to double for Wayne in some thrilling stuntwork, while Wayne himself comes across in a most agreeable and sympathetic manner.Despite its small budget and obviously hasty shooting schedule, The Lucky Texan (the title has little to do with the plot. Hayes is the one who is "lucky". Not only does he find the gold - admittedly assisted by the Texan - but escapes death twice) comes over as one of the most exciting and most interesting of the Lone Stars. Certainly it's tops in the all-important action department.

MartinHafer I've seen quite a few of John Wayne's B-movies that he made throughout the 1930s and this one certainly was unique. I saw it on the Encore Channel and noticed that the soundtrack was very, very modern--done with electrical instruments that hadn't been invented until very recently. Also, at times it really sounds out of place. However, the voice tracks are all original. Why was this done? Could anyone explain this to me?! It detracted a bit from an otherwise excellent B-western and I then noticed this in OTHER Wayne films on Encore. Whose hair-brained idea was this?!"The Lucky Texan" stars John Wayne with George "Gabby" Hayes. You might not recognize Gabby at first. Some of this is because in the 1930s he still hadn't settled upon his old coot character yet--appearing in some of Wayne's films with his false teeth and dressed quite well. In this guise, he occasionally even played the villain. Here, he isn't quite the erudite character but not quite the coot, either--he's a bit of a transition. While missing the teeth and sounding like the old Gabby we all know and love, here he sports a mustache instead of a scraggly beard and is a bit less of a crazy character--at least for the first 3/4 of the film.The movie begins with Wayne and his new partner discovering gold. However, instead of staking their claim and having it jumped, they decide to keep the location of their find a secret. Little do they know that the man in the gold assayer's office is part of a gang that includes many of the folks in town and they'll stop at nothing to steal the claim. First they try to frame Hayes for murder--and this fails. Then, he try to kill him and assume he's dead---though he survived and kept his whereabouts hidden. When men now claim that Hayes sold his property to them, Wayne is sure that there is a conspiracy afoot...and he investigates while Hays lies low. How Hayes manages to do this is a real hoot--but I won't say more--it would spoil the fun.While the plot is pretty standard, how all this is handled is certainly not. Again, I can't really say more, as it would really miss a wonderful twist. Leave it to me when I just say that you MUST see this film if you like B-westerns. You'll see what I mean.By the way, aside from the bad soundtrack that was tacked on later, isn't it odd to see ladies wearing 1930s-style dresses and seeing one of the good guys give chase in a model T Ford as two of the baddies rode off on an electric cart?! Apart from these anachronisms (and more), this looks like an old West film and it sure baffled me!

dougdoepke Looks like our friends at Lone Star put this one together on the fly. It's like they've got two plots going at the same time, and then decide to drop the one with bank robber Al (Eddie Parker) in favor of the other with Jake (Hayes) and his daughter (Sheldon). Nonetheless, there are some entertaining touches. The street fight with Wayne and Parker is especially energetic, two young guys in tip-top shape and well matched. I guess producers decided we Front Row kids had seen enough hard riding, so instead there's that nifty 3-way chase pitting horse against flivver against rail-car. The latter two are faster, but then the horse can go anywhere and we know who's got the horse. And is that Hayes actually duking it out with the bad guy. We only see the back of his head, at a time when the one-and-only Hayes was already pushing 50. Then there's that headlong slide down the sluice chute that looks like an Old West version of an E-ride at Disneyland. And what kid wouldn't have given his proverbial i- teeth to have been along on that one.One reason I still like these Lone Star oaters is because of the young Wayne. Note how loose and relaxed he is; he's having fun out there in LA's outskirts with all his buddies in the crew and cast. He's just perfect for these matinée specials. But pity poor Barbara Sheldon as Betty. Director Bradbury has his hands full with the guys and the script, so here she is floundering around, doing her best, but looking like a confused puppy. Sadly, it appears she quit the business following this movie's wrap-up. No, this is not top-rank Lone Star, but then it's not every entry where we get to see knobby-knee Hayes in drag and his underwear. So there are compensations.In passing—note how the assayer in his office quotes Hayes a price of $16 an ounce for gold. That was the price in 1933, and the trouble is it stayed at that price for the next 40 or so years because of gov't fiat. At the same time, the costs of mining gold were rising yearly. So the industry went into eclipse and that's why the metal that had so much to do with opening the West fell off the public's radar screen for so many years following WWII. Ironic.

Jay Raskin Gabby Hayes irascible sidekick performance and Yakima Canutt's excellent stunt work make this one quite watchable. Gabby is delightful, especially when he puts on a dress to testify at his own trial. The horse transfer stunt that doesn't work is really special. Yakima (doubling for Wayne) jumps on a fleeing horse from his own galloping horse, he misses and ends up rolling down a hill. One gasps and hopes he wasn't hurt.With likable characters and a plot that keeps moving, this one is quite professional and on a par with a good Lone Ranger episode two decades later.