Bill Slocum Give the producers at Monogram Pictures (a. k. a. Lone Star) some credit: They gave John Wayne here a chance to try some comedy, and the Duke delivers. It's a shame the result is buried in another lame C- western with a poor script and below-par acting.Rodeo rider John Scott (Wayne) and his gambler companion Kansas Charlie (Eddy Chandler) get mixed up in a case of mistaken identity when they are blamed for stealing money from a crooked rodeo and murdering its promoter. Lying low in another town under assumed names, they find themselves on the wrong side of the law again, thanks to the machinations of the promoter's real killers.Watching Wayne cut up here with Chandler is kind of fun, especially early on. Director Cullen Lewis starts us off with a scene where the two are playing cards, and a tight close-up shows Kansas Charlie dealing himself an ace from the bottom of the deck. Scott catches him, though he's not angry at the duplicity so much as disgusted by the awkwardness of the move."You're terrible!" Scott exclaims. "Try any of those phony tricks at Rattlesnake Gulch, they'll run you out quicker than they did at the last place!"Watching Scott and Kansas Charlie bicker is fun for a while. Unfortunately, that's about all "The Desert Trail" has to offer. The conflict with the killers is awkwardly presented and left unresolved, even after one of them returns to steal Scott's money and Kansas Charlie's watch. Instead of trying to clear their names or catch the thief, Scott and K. C. hightail it to another town, where they meet pretty storekeeper Anne (Mary Kornman) and develop a new line of bickering over her. Seeing Wayne play a rather crooked character is kind of interesting; unfortunately this Scott guy and his pal are pretty dumb, too.Wayne enthusiasts may find his performance as noteworthy as I did; they may also like seeing Paul Fix, a regular in many Wayne movies, playing one of the killers who's also Anne's brother. Fix is terrible in this movie, perhaps because he was a busy guy (he appeared in 14 other movies in 1935 alone) and the character is so badly written. He doesn't want to kill and steal, but his nasty partner Pete (Al Ferguson) keeps threatening to turn him in if he doesn't go along. How would Pete do this without incriminating himself? Scott and Kansas aren't the only two characters in "Desert Trail" not long on brains.The film ambles along fretfully, with odd shoot-outs (odd because Wayne is often shooting at good guys) and cruel horse stunts (they tripped the horses in full gallop with wire, and a couple of the stunts here appear to have been fatal) breaking up largely comic interludes involving Scott, Kansas, and Anne. Kornman, a fetching woman with skills honed from her childhood career in silent "Our Gang" comedies, plays well off Wayne, especially when he tries to schmooze her by making her climb a ladder for some "nerve tonic." She points out nerve tonic is something he doesn't seem to need.With some better scripting, either in the way of a coherent cowboy actioner or a more focused comedy, "Desert Trail" might have risen above the batch of cheapo films Wayne starred in in his own desert years, after "The Big Trail" and before "Stagecoach." But it just doesn't gel enough, or go anywhere interesting beyond the occasional funniness.

John W Chance One of the more 'literate' Lone Stars, with time spent on character development and interaction, dialog and acting business. The opening scene sets the stage (literally) for the personalities of the gambler, Kansas Charlie (Eddy Chandler), and his buddy, John Scott (John Wayne) the rodeo (say Roh-Day-oh) star, both of whom are slightly randy. The film follows their adventures, as they try to best each other in the pursuit of the Mexican Juanita, and later in their pursuit of perky Mary Kornman, who has the inevitable evil brother (though he'd been led astray by the real villain, and wants to repent). And oh, of course, they're being wrongly accused of two crimes and have to serve jail time before escaping and being exonerated at the end.The high point is Scott continually and deliberately ogling Mary's butt in her grocery store, and knocking away the ladder she's standing on so he can catch her and grab her as she falls. It all seems a little contemporary for a 30s western, but it sounds better than it actually is. Sadly, the exciting action elements we find in many other Lone Stars are sorely missing here. No Yakima Canutt. Cheap and bad uses of stock footage of riders falling off horses. No George Hayes. Tedious Stooge-like bi-play between Scott and Charlie, with Charlie swinging at Scott, Scott stomping on his foot and then punching him (repeated two more times!). The skilled Paul Fix is underused. Eddy Chandler himself, here in his big star turn, is not really believable as a randy side kick. The villain looks too old and fat. So does Chandler, who spent his later career in 300 more movies as an uncredited meatloaf. Mary Kornman, of the twenties "Our Gang" (see 'Mary, Queen of Tots' 1925) is cute in her scenes with John Wayne, but that's about it for this one. Seeds of a better western lie buried here.P.S. The ultra-short colorized version, which looks good, moves along so fast, it's over if you blink more than once. Thankfully though, the embarrassing scenes with Eddy Chandler have been cut.

frankfob This early John Wayne Lone Star western has a bit more going for it than the run-of-the-mill oaters Wayne had been making for Lone Star up until that time. For one, it has his old friend Paul Fix in it; Fix, being a much better actor then the standard Lone Star villain, brings a much needed professionalism to the surroundings instead of the usual hesitant line-readings often delivered in these oaters. The plot, about mistaken identity, payroll robbery and murder, is as trite and perfunctory as you'd expect it to be in a 1930s low-budget western, but Wayne's strapping good looks, easygoing charm and way with a line go a long way to making this more enjoyable. Plump, balding Eddy Chandler isn't quite believable as Wayne's womanizing "partner", and there's a running gag about something that happens whenever Chandler and Wayne are about to get into a fistfight that grows tiresome. On the other hand, Wayne's love interest is played by none other than Mary Kornman, the little "Mary" of the early "Little Rascals" fame. She is a grown-up 20-year-old now, blonde and cute as a button. Most of Wayne's leading ladies in these Lone Star/Monogram "B's" were fairly bland and colorless, but Mary is perky, cute and, yes, sexy. There's a scene in the general store, where she works, in which Wayne asks her to get him a bottle of "nerve tonic", which happens to be on the top shelf, so she has to get a ladder and climb up to the top shelf. Wayne's ogling of her pert little backside as she ascends the steps, then again as she comes down, then again a few minuter later when he asks her to climb up and get him another bottle, is surprisingly racy for a film made in 1935. Wayne makes no attempt at all to hide the fact that he is definitely checking out her butt. It's surprising that this got past the Hays Office censors, but they were probably more concerned with the product that came out of the "main" studios rather than a cheap "B" western from some--as far as they were concerned--no-name outfit.Anyway, it's an interesting little "B", not great but not as choppy and disorganized as many of his Lone Star productions of the time. The final gunfight isn't handled all that well, and Chandler gets somewhat irritating after a while, but all in all, it's worth a look, if only to see a cute and sexy Mary Kornman.

classicsoncall John Scott (John Wayne) and partner Kansas Charlie (Eddy Chandler) are trail buddies who make their way to the Rattlesnake Gulch rodeo. Scott is a pretty fair contestant, but finds that unless he's willing to accept twenty five cents on the dollar in prize money from a crooked promoter, he'll have to collect his winnings at gunpoint. Quite coincidentally, bandits Pete (Al Ferguson) and Jim (Paul Fix) decide they'd like the rest of the rodeo take; they shoot promoter Farnsworth (Henry Hall), and make it look like Scott and Kansas Charlie are the killers. Wayne and Chandler use a running gag in the film where they're about to go at it with their fists over various trivialities. Each time Chandler takes a wild swing, Wayne foot stomps him and knocks him silly.If you're very attentive, there's a neat Lipton's Tea ad in one of the scenes in which Scott's love interest Anne (Mary Kornman) appears.Later on in the film, the buddies are framed once again over a stage robbery. Having a change of heart and seeing the error of his ways, bad guy Jim wants to come clean and confess to the sheriff, but Pete shoots him down. While being patched up, Jim tells his story to the doctor and his sister Anne. In an unbelievable scene, Anne marches right into the middle of a gunfight between the good guys and the villains to confront the sheriff."The Desert Trail" is one of the blander John Wayne Westerns from Lone Star Productions during this era. Noticeably absent are George "Gabby" Hayes and Yakima Canutt, one or both are usually to be seen in these oaters. If you're a John Wayne fan though, you'll have to see it once, but that will probably be enough.