West of the Divide/The Man From Utah (1934)
Films:
DVD:
Review by HTQ4

West of the Divide
Written and Directed by Robert N. Bradbury
Starring John Wayne, Virginia Brown Faire, George Hayes, Lloyd Whitlock, Yakima Canutt

The Man From Utah
Written by Lindsley Parsons
Directed by Robert N. Bradbury
Starring John Wayne, Polly Ann Young, Anita Campillo, Edward Peil, George Hays

Released by: Delta Entertainment
Rating: NR (some mild violence)
Region: All
Anamorphic: N/A; films appear in their original 1.33:1 format

My Advice: Rent it

In West of the Divide, Ted Hayden (Wayne) has shown up back in his hometown where he hopes to get into Mr. Gentry's (Whitlock) gang. He does this by impersonating a wanted man who dies in front of him after drinking from a poisoned water hole. However, Hayden winds up in over his head when he learns that Gentry is the man who killed his father lo those many years ago. While he's at it, he also saves a ranch that belongs to the father of the beautiful Fay Winters (Faire).

This is one of Wayne's early "B" Westerns. The quality of the transfer is probably better than we could have hoped for, but the sound and video are still awfully bad. We should be very thankful that they got it on DVD when they did or we might have missed this one forever. As a movie, it's not all that good. In fact, it all happens too fast--the movie comes in at just under an hour--so there is precious little time for stuff like character or story development. The other thing is that the movie's contrast seems way out of whack; I'm not sure if this was a problem of the transfer or the actual shooting of the movie (it is probably the latter). Wayne is definitely learning the craft that will one day make him an American Icon, but it's neat to see him chewing up the scenery with a really bad script.

In The Man From Utah, Marshall Higgins (Hayes) has sent John Weston (Wayne) to solve a murder at a rodeo. It seems that someone has been killing all the riders who have been winning. Weston discovers that a man named Barton (Peil) has put the rodeo together and is planning to make off with all the townspeople's money. However, when Weston beats Barton's rider in the rodeo, it turns out that Barton has planned the same fate for Weston that met all the other winning riders. Will Weston save the day and solve the crime?

This one is definitely one of his "B" movies. First of all, it starts out with Wayne riding through the frame on horseback playing a guitar singing (or rather lip-syncing...very poorly) a melancholy tune. Again, here we see a Wayne that has not really discovered his true power as an actor. His fellow performers really don't give him much help in this department, but they do the best they can with the paper-thin budget I'm sure they had. Anyway, this transfer is not much better than the other film on this DVD, but it's good that they at least attempted to make it happen. Just like Divide, the film's contrast is way off and the sound is horrible.

There are no special features attached to either one of these movies on this DVD and, I'm sad to say, it's not all that surprising. Why would anyone have wasted the time or money on putting together a behind-the-scenes feature about a B movie with some guy named John Wayne during the 1930s? After all, they were in the middle of the Great Depression. It would have been nice to have some film historian give some kind of a commentary track or interview telling about these films' historical significance, but we are forced to rely on the internet for that kind of stuff.

Since that is the case, I'm sad to say that this DVD remains on the rental list, but if you are a Wayne fan, it should be very high on your rental list. It will be a fun two hours.