utgard14 Cheapie western starring John Wayne as a cowboy who forms a group of singing vigilantes, slinging bullets and ballads across the West. Meanwhile his long-lost brother has saddled up with the wrong crowd. Nonsense from start to finish, and sadly never as much fun as the plot description makes it sound. It's dullsville. And don't even get me started on that ending! What was the point of the brother plot if it was going to end like that?

tomwal A debut western for John Wayne , enhanced by Olive films in 2012 with a new digital transfer. Lensed by Archie Stout on location, this western tells the story of two brothers, Wayne and Frank McGynne. Their parents are killed . One brother Mcgynne is taken by outlaws and Wayne grows up hoping to avenge the death of his parents and locate his lost brother. He forms a vigilante group and the story proceeds from there.Never dull, there are good performances from all involved. Well worth a view and a ****** out of 10 star rating.

bsmith5552 When Republic Pictures was formed in 1935,Trem Carr's Lone Star western group was included along with star John Wayne. Thus began Wayne's turbulent relationship with the studio which lasted until 1951.The first thing that you will notice when watching "westward Ho!" for the first time is the large cast of extras particularly in the riding scenes (the veritable cast of thousands). Quite a feat for the newly formed "B" studio considering that the Great Depression was still ongoing.Anyway, the plot in that oft used good brother vs. bad brother theme. John an d Jim Wyatt are part of a wagon train that is ambushed by rustler Ballard (Jack Curtis)and his gang, which includes veteran stuntman/actor Yakima Canutt. The boys parents are killed and John is left for dead while brother Jim is "adopted" by Ballard.Fast forward a few years and John Wyatt has grown up to be John Wayne and Jim, Frank McGlynn Jr. Jim has become an outlaw within Ballard's gang. John meanwhile has organized a vigilante group known as "The Singing Riders" to track down all outlaw gangs as he searches for his lost brother.Along the way, John joins up with Lafe Gordon's (Jim Farley)cattle drive in the hopes of catching Ballard and Co. Well, as luck would have it, Gordon has a comely young daughter Mary (Sheila Mannors) with whom John strikes up a relationship. To complicate matters, Jim also joins Gordon's group unbeknownst that his brother John is there. Finally the brothers discover who each of them is and..............................John Wayne had previously portrayed "Singin' Sandy) in a couple of his Lone Star westerns. So as the leader of the "Singing Riders" he gets to sing (dubbed of course) a forgettable tune to the heroine. A singing cowboy John Wayne was not.The film is enhanced by the presence of Yakima Canutt who staged many of the film's stunts including several horse falls and a spectacular "wagon over the cliff" scene. Considering the large cast of riders, this could not have been no easy task.Other recognizable faces in the cast were Glenn Strange, Earl Dwire (who had appeared in several of Wayne's "Lone Stars") and Lloyd Ingraham.Worth a look.

rightwingisevil first, we got people singing a song like watching a play on a stage. then the funny things showed up one by one. by watching this 1935 film i was unable not to think about what the hongkong shaw brothers did to their Chinese kung-fu movies, always with stupid screenplays, weird attires, costumes, hairdos, make-up, terrible acting... pretentious and unrealistic dialog.....all of those horrible arrangements shown in shaw brothers kung fu movies were accidentally matched this pathetic western genre b movie. all the people in this pioneering westward movie wore nice, clean and ironed costumes, even in gunfights, good guys led by john wayne were riding on white horses, wearing white shirts, while the bad guys' horses were just a mixture of different colors. there were so many laughable and pretentious scenes and dialog in this horrible film.