Tex Palmer Movies

Assigned to write and direct the John Wayne western West of the Divide, Robert N. Bradbury dug out the plotline he'd used so often and to such good effect in his son Bob Steele's vehicles. Wayne plays frontiersman Ted Hayden, who spends most of the picture searching for the man who killed his parents. Along the way, he "tames" spoiled heroine Fay Winter (Virginia Brown Faire) and rediscovers his long-lost brother Spud (Billy O'Brien). John Wayne's fistfights with chief heavy Yakima Canutt aren't in the same league as his later Canutt-supervised stunt sequences, but they're pretty good by their own standards. West of the Divide was the fourth entry in Wayne's "Lone Star" series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In perhaps the most haunting opening of any B-Western, Randy Rides Alone has John Wayne enter a deserted saloon filled with corpses. To the tinny strains of a player-piano and with someone eerily peeking from behind a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, Wayne's reconnaissance ends with his arrest for murder. No B-Western ground out in five days for around $10,000 could possibly live up to this introduction and Randy Rides Alone quickly gets down to business as usual. But director Harry L. Fraser and scenarist Lindsley Parsons still manage to get in a couple of off-beat touches. The killers, lead by stunt-man extraordinaire Yakima Canutt, are holed up in a cave picturesquely hidden behind a waterfall, and future comic relief George "Gabby" Hayes, looking for all the world like Lionel Barrymore, plays a mute, hunchbacked shop-keeper who may not be all he appears. Add to the mystery elements some extraordinary stunt-work by Canutt and you have a superior series Western. Cecilia Parker, one of the more gracious actresses to appear in low-budget fare, was all set to co-star as the murdered saloon owner's niece, but Wayne came down with the flu and production was delayed. When producer Paul Malvern was ready to begin again, Miss Parker proved unavailable and had to be replaced with 1924 WAMPAS Baby Star Alberta Vaughn, an actress whose career was all but over. Randy Rides Alone did little to alter that fact but the film remains a minor classic of the genre. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In the first of his 16 Westerns for Monogram, John Wayne plays Singin' Sandy Saunders, a drifter who witnesses what he at first believes to be a stage robbery. In reality, the "road agent" is a girl, Fay Denton (Cecilia Parker), and she is "stealing" her own money in order to prevent a phony stage holdup further down the road. As Fay's father, Charlie "Dad" Denton (George Hayes), explains, the culprit behind a rash of pretend stage holdups committed by two bumbling drivers (Al St. John and Heinie Conklin) is James Kincaid (Forrest Taylor), who is also forcing the local farmers off their lands by demanding an outrageous price for his water. When Sandy appears on the horizon, Kincaid engages a notorious gunman, Slip Morgan (Earl Dwire), but Sandy disarms the bandit for good by shooting him through both wrists. Much to Fay's disgust, Kincaid quickly hires the newcomer, now known as "the most notorious outlaw since Billy the Kid," and Saunders suggests that they dynamite Dad Denton's well, the only other available source of water in the area. It is all a ruse, of course, and Sandy soon reveals himself to be a government agent in disguise. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In his third Allied Pictures release of 1932, veteran screen cowboy Hoot Gibson played his favorite role, that of a happy-go-lucky rodeo rider. This time, Gibson plays Johnny Ringo, a former lawman turned rodeo champ who returns to the old homestead to find his brother Bud (longtime Gibson protegee Fred Gilman) in trouble with a couple of crooked livestock-brokers cum cattle rustlers (Hooper Atchley and Al Bridge). Pretending to be a bumbling fool -- a favorite Gibson ploy -- "The Hooter" gains access to the villains' lair and is able to rescue a pretty kidnap victim (Doris Hill). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide