John Wayne plays a sheriff who mistakenly believes he killed his best friend. So he turns in his badge and goes to live in the woods. A year later the dead friend's citified daughter shows up. Wayne has to rescue her and she offers him a job as foreman on the ranch she inherited from her father. Romance follows but not without some troubles. Eventually Wayne finds out who really killed his pal and straps on his guns to get justice. In many ways this is a routine B western, the type Duke made plenty of early in his career. The plot elements and even some of the stunts seem familiar to other Wayne oaters I've seen from the period. But there are some interesting things I haven't seem before. John Wayne being broody, for one thing. At one point we see him with a beard and trying to look disheveled. Kind of funny. Gabby Hayes is also in this but without the grizzled old-timer shtick we all love. It's enjoyable enough for the type of unchallenging movie it is. I think these were mostly aimed at kids back in the day so don't expect anything deep.

John Wayne is the local sheriff and in his attempt to stop some would be robbers, he believes that he has killed his best friend,, he is very distraught and winds up quitting his job, and becoming a hired ranch hand in the desert, in the meantime , he helps some Indians with their day to life and problems,, George "Gabby Hayes,, plays the old sheriff , who now has to take the job of sheriff since Wayne quit.. Leroy Mason plays the villain as usual, and does a pretty good job with it. as the film moves on , one of the people he is helping a young girl, who he knows very well is the daughter of his friend,, the man who he believes he has killed, will she find out that he had something to do with it,, in the meantime he has to stop some horse thieves, and eventually it will all lead back to who shot his best friend,, and interesting watch,, not a great western,, but not a bad one either,, middle of the road , maybe a little better.

"Texas Terror" is better than a lot of the Wayne Lonestar Productions. In this one, Wayne gets a chance to expand on his usual innocent-tough guy persona. After an incident where his friend gets shot, a distraught Wayne quits his job as sheriff. He falls apart and grows a beard and looks like he's halfway towards turning into a Gabby Hayes, gruff-old- goat character. He then does another nice-turn-around to get back to being the hero. Wayne is less stiff and actually looks interested in the scenes he's in. Its really one of his best early performances.Besides Wayne getting to play a more multi-dimensional character, there's a great plot twist at the end. It is Wayne's Indian friends who come charging on horseback to the rescue. It is nice to see a 1935 movie where the Indians are truly the good guys and heroes in the tale.There's an hilarious milking contest in the middle. The losing milker looks exactly like the Pappy Yokum character from Li'l Abner. He was probably the prototype.Overall, this Wayne Lonestars becomes more interesting as it goes along. This is not something you can say about some others.

I’d always resisted watching John Wayne’s 1930s Western programmers (some of them have been shown on both local and Cable TV over the years) – but, some time ago, my father had purchased a bargain-basement PD triple-bill featuring two of these (plus Clark Gable’s official debut, THE PAINTED DESERT [1931]) and I thought I’d check them out in time for The Duke’s 100th Anniversary. Incidentally, a few other early Wayne stuff is available from my local DVD rental outlet and, now that I’m in the vein for his films, I may get them as well...Anyway, having watched two such oaters in quick succession, I can say that they’re harmless and enjoyable enough – but, at the same time, charmingly naïve. Curiously, some years back, I had rented a number of PD Westerns and these included a couple of Randolph Scott titles from this same era – TO THE LAST MAN (1933) and ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY (1935): they share a connection with the two Wayne films I watched in that one was directed by Bradbury, while the other was adapted from a Zane Grey novel; the Scotts, therefore, are similar but also slightly superior.The plot of this one is pretty straightforward, but Wayne is a likable lead: he plays a sheriff who ends up accused of killing his best friend, resigns, meets and falls for the dead man’s daughter (whose ‘crime’ she’s unaware of) and eventually routs the real villain (who, unsurprisingly, is also interested in the girl). The treatment is completely unassuming (it has to be when the film is a mere 50 minutes long!) – with folksy characters (acting in broad early-Talkie style, particularly the leading lady) and stunt-heavy action (with the horses involved in some incredibly hazardous falls!). Still, the extreme low-budget is evidenced by the baffling intrusion on the Western setting of contemporary contrivances – houses are equipped with telephones, characters attend a dance in dinner-jackets, and Wayne himself is made to drive a car at one point (how a cowboy ever came to understand its mechanism so quickly isn’t worth pondering about, I guess)!