John Wayne grew as a screen performer during his days starring at the cheapo production company Lone Star. It's a shame the last film he made there turned out one of the worst.Government agent John Wyatt (Wayne) is sent on a mission to find a pair of suspected counterfeiters. One, Doc Carter (Earle Hodgins) runs a travelling medicine show selling gussied-up hard liquor as a "Famous Indian Remedy." The other, Curly Joe Gale (Yakima Canutt), is hiding out in Mexico, where he runs his illegal trade. The government suspects the two may still be in cahoots."Well, that's a new one for me," Wyatt tells his boss. "Looks like I'm going to have to join a medicine show."It's the one new wrinkle on what by now had become the Wayne formula at Lone Star. Once again he has a secret identity, once again he will meet a charming girl to bond with (Marion Burns as Doc's daughter Linda) and once again he will butt heads with Canutt when the crook crosses paths with his less crooked partner Doc and decides to get him out of the way for good.Director Carl L. Pierson may not be Wayne's regular helmer at Lone Star, Robert N. Bradbury, but he employs the same kind of flat storytelling devices and obvious padding. The film begins with Wyatt riding up to a town and discovering Doc Carter just rolled out under a cloud of community suspicion. The routine is repeated twice more before Wyatt finally links up with Doc and joins the show.An assortment of time-killing devices follow, including a lengthy section where Doc delivers his spiel, introduces a pair of guitar- playing singers who perform a couple of songs, then turns things over to his new attraction, "Cowboy John," who shoots targets around Linda. This amounts to a successful courting ritual for Wyatt, leaving us to wonder what kind of father lets a stranger fire bullets an inch from his daughter's head.A drunk one, I guess. Much of the humor involves how Doc Carter is his own best customer. In between pulls from the bottle, his tedious spiels suck away whatever passes for energy. As John W Chance points out in another review here, you get the feeling Pierson thought Hodgins was going to be in pictures long after the world forgot about this Wayne guy.There's also Canutt as the bad guy, a legendary stuntman who was no actor. The film has him try to bribe Wyatt to make Doc leave town, then resort to lame threats when Wyatt refuses."Alright, stranger, then I'll deal from the bottom of the deck," Curly Joe replies in his flat, wheedling voice. "You and that show be out of town tonight, or I'll be there looking for you." Eventually the criminal mastermind settles on having his henchmen take Doc and Linda to a cave where he can laugh and wait for Wyatt to show up before shooting them.There's also a number of needlessly cruel horse falls that punctuate long chase scenes. All of this is by-the-numbers Lone Star time kill, and hopefully fed some hungry dogs better than it does our need for excitement.The most disappointing thing about this film is Wayne himself. While he managed to show some real talent in his Lone Star work, here he's very clearly going through the motions and watching the clock. With such a dull supporting cast and a lame story, you can't blame him. Maybe he was thrown playing love scenes with an actress who had the same first name he did.Wayne's Lone Star films have some good moments, and at least one film worth recommending on its own merits, "Sagebrush Trail." Unfortunately, this one only shows why they called it "Poverty Row."

Posses on horseback chasing after Model T Fords has never been my idea of a Western. Though I tolerated it from Roy Rogers (as a child of the 50s) I can't take it as an adult fan of The Duke. If there are cars in the picture 'it ain't a western'.We do have the obligatory hide out in a cave and John Wayne diving in to river-he must have been a heck of a swimmer because he sure jumped in to lakes and rivers a lot in these B films of the 30s. It actually is not a bad story line as far as these old b&w movies go-but I go back to my previous point-cars and horses don't mix in my mind as to what a western should be. I'm not asking for my money back though-just my least favorite of the 30s western genre that helped launch the Duke's career.

Like a slew of John Wayne B-movies recently aired on the Encore Channel, this one features a god-awful new musical track that practically ruins the film. The music is too loud, the wrong type of music, is played on modern electronic machines and is the exact same musical accompaniment you'll find on at least a dozen other Wayne films! Yes, the exact same sound track is used again and again! Also like a slew of other Wayne films (as well as Gene Autry films now that I think of it), the film is set out West and while MOST of it looks like it was set about 1880-1890, there are tons of anachronisms! The leading lady wears modern dress and they drive about the west in a truck!! Oddly, in this and other films, when it comes to chasing the bad guys, they don't chase them in a car or truck but on horseback! It's all very bizarre but not terribly uncommon in cheap B-westerns where they often just didn't care about these details.Wayne is looking for a traveling medicine show, as he's a good guy investigating some counterfeiting ring. Instead of confronting the crooks at the show, he joins them and does trick shooting to attract customers. At the same time, he naturally falls for the boss' pretty daughter. Eventually, it turns out that a baddie named 'Curly Joe' is behind the phony money scam. No, this is NOT the same Curly Joe who was the really lame third Stooge in the late 1950s and 1960s.This film is not among one of the best films of the era for John Wayne. While none of the films had very high expectations, they were moderately entertaining and fun. This one, however, was a bit duller than usual--mostly due to no interesting sidekick and an amazingly dull villain. The stunts are decent but there just isn't much to this one to make it anything other than a mediocre B-movie.

This film is structured like the formulaic Republic westerns to come from 1937 on. Too much talking, not enough action, unfunny comic relief, bad songs, and too many stationary locations. We can bid goodbye to the fast paced action of the earlier 'Lone Star' films.Here, while John Wayne is again a 'Federal' agent sent to track down a gang of, in this case, counterfeiters, the action gets bogged down in too many side characters and slow story. Wayne joins up with 'Doctor Carter's Medicine Show', which was somehow involved in the appearance of fake money. Finally he catches Curly Joe (Yakima Canutt), the head of the evil gang, who had captured and tied up Doctor Carter (Earle Hodgins) and his daughter Linda (Marion Burns). It's always great to hear Yakima Canutt as the villain, though, with that gravelly voice of his! Marion Burns and Reed Howes (here a 'henchman') helped to make 'The Dawn Riders' (1935) a much better film than this, since it was about a love triangle between her, Howes, and John Wayne. Everything in this one just plods along until it's action time going towards the end.One highlight is the extensive screen time given to Earle Hodgins as Doc. In one too long scene he goes on and on as a barker. The director, not R.N. Bradbury, probably said, "Let him go on! He does it so well!" Sure enough, he turned his carnival barker style of acting schtick into most of his over 300 movie and TV appearances! Although I love music, the duo singing here is strictly Republic (that is, highly forgettable). I give the film a 3.