This was one of those B-movie Westerns John Wayne had to pay his dues, and learn his craft in, on his way to superstardom and becoming a household name. His acting chops, while coming along and becoming more multidimensional, are still developing, and he gets by more or less on his charisma and big smile. Joseph Kane provides decent, pedestrian direction--all of the exciting scenes are directed by Wayne's longtime associate, Yakima Canutt (the one who would later direct the outstanding chariot race in 'Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ'), and Vera Ralston is great as the loving wife who just seems to do the wrong thing at the worst possible time.Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki are excellent as the bad guys, and Walter Brennan (as the most bipolar ship captain one will EVER find in cinema) and Nick Stewart (as his harped-on assistant) steal every scene they're in. Ona Munson even throws in an entertaining song-and-dance number, and provides an interesting love possibility for Wayne, if he wasn't such a one-woman guy.This was released on Christmas Day in the States, and it's no lump of coal in one's stocking, but a small, likable gift for fans of the genre. Worth a watch if you like Westerns, and a purchase and rewatch for Wayne enthusiasts.

Many reviewers complain about Vera Ralston's acting in this film and others. I thought this failed ice skating queen did an OK job playing her role. She is supposed to be the elegant daughter of an immigrant father who struck it rich in railroads. This explains her foreign accent and the fact that she is unlike those sexy dance hall girls of Fargo. Wayne appears to have married her mainly for her wealthy connections, looks and good pedigree. She appears to have married him for his good looks and charismatic personality. She is determined to call the shots when it comes to deciding where they will live, both near the beginning and at the end of the film. When they run away from her disapproving father, Wayne tells her to buy tickets to CA, but she buys tickets to St. Paul, knowing that her father's railroad is planning to soon begin a line to Fargo. She hopes to buy land cheap from the farmers and sell it dear to her father's railroad. Unfortunately, Ward Bond and gang have the same idea. Bond assumed the railroad was soon coming to Fargo because he saw their surveyors. He also assumes that Wayne is a land buying agent for the railroad(until late in the film, when the real agent shows up). Bond hammers out a contract with most of the farmers that he gets their land if they can't repay the money he loans them to harvest and market their wheat. He plans to burn their wheat, a variation on a similar scene in "The Westerner", when cattlemen were trying to burn out the sod busters. Wayne threatens to pressure the railroad to via Grand Forks, instead of Fargo, unless Bond signs over his contract with the farmers to Wayne(and presumably the railroad) for a big discount compared to the amount Bond was planning to sell the contract to the railroad. Wayne plans to share his profit with the farmers, should the farmers be unable to repay their loans. Bond hopes to steal the contract back from a deceased Wayne, delete the part about Wayne being the new contract owner and then burn the wheat fields. See the film to find out how things turn out.Walter Brennan plays a goofy old riverboat captain who mostly talks to his boat or himself or shouts at his assistant, Nichodemis. He practically steals the show. Nick Stewart, as Nichodemis, plays his stock character:a sleepy, incredibly slow thinking "darkie". He was Lightin' in the Amos & Andy TV series.

This is one of the worst John Wayne flicks of the 1940s. By this point in his career, Wayne was now a star and deserved better material and a better leading lady. If you compare this film with THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, which came out the same year, the contrast is great. DAKOTA is simply a B-western with lousy and very confusing writing. While it has good supporting actors in Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki, Vera Ralston as Wayne's wife is incredibly wooden and she sports a bizarre accent that can't be accounted for in the script (her dad seemed like he had a French accent and she was Czechoslovakian). Most of the time, she's kind of pretty to look at, but becomes more of an annoyance than anything else. It was hard to figure WHY Wayne would have married such an idiot in the first place! The only reasons she got ANY roles is that her lover was the head of Republic Pictures--otherwise, she was much more of a liability than an asset. As I already mentioned, the plot is completely convoluted--and I really had to struggle to figure out what was going on. Part of this COULD have been because the movie just wasn't engaging. This is a forgettable film and only of interest to big fans of John Wayne. There are so many better Wayne films available--try watching one of them first.

This is possibly the best of the one hour movies that John Wayne made for Republic Pictures. From the opening sequence the film moves at a brisk pace. Although the theme is one of helping people protect their lands and their future, there are also lighter moments of comedy.