The Dawn Rider (1935)

Thanks for the memories!

Just perfect...

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Director: ROBERT NORTH BRADBURY. Screenplay: Robert North Bradbury. Story: Lloyd Nosler. Photography: Archie Stout. Film editor: Carl Pierson. Art director: E.R. Hickson. Sound recording: D.S. Stoner. Producer: Paul Malvern. A Lone Star Western.Not copyright by Monogram Pictures Corp. U.S. release through Republic: 20 June 1935. U.K. release through Pathé: 23 December 1935. 56 minutes;COMMENT: Plenty of action in this one. Wayne does his own riding and fighting, whilst Canutt contributes some exciting stunt-work. At the same time, the script develops its characters most interestingly, allowing Reed Howes some golden opportunities to paint a fascinating portrait of the star-crossed Ben. The villain is played most agreeably by Dennis Moore — of all people — making a nice contrast with the pleasant heroine limned by the lovely Marion Burns. It's unfortunate that action highlights are — as usual in the Monogram Lone Stars — handicapped both by the obvious absence of background music and the deployment of hollow sound effects. These defects give the picture a museum air, for which Bradbury's lively direction — complete with running inserts — manages to compensate (at least to some extent).

This cheapie western starring a young John Wayne starts off with a rather silly confrontation between Wayne and a local tough who just embarrassed another guy moments before. Well that wimp wasn't John Wayne, who proceeds to trash talk the tough guy before cleaning his clock. After the fight the two men become friends. Anyway, that silliness aside, the plot of the movie is about Wayne seeking his father's killer. Turns out it's his girlfriend's brother. Cue dramatic music. Or, in many modern prints, cue the crappy music made on a $20 keyboard. This is made worse by the poor audio where you have to turn the volume up to hear the dialogue, only to have sound effects or that terrible music knock you off your seat.Judged on its merits, it's not one of the better early Wayne westerns. But it does have unintentional comic value and nice photography by Archie Stout. As with most of these low-budget oaters Wayne made, the stunts are the best part. In addition to his stunt work, Yakima Canutt plays the saloon owner. This was remade in 2012 with Christian Slater. I haven't seen that one yet but I can imagine the plot is the only similarity.

One of a series of repetitious and unpretentious Westerns that Monogram put out in the 30s. They fed the public's desire for movie fare, kept actors and crew employed during the Great Depression, and were inexpensive enough to keep the studio itself sufficiently solvent to keep grinding them out. As a kind of ancillary benefit they gave John Wayne a chance to be seasoned and develop his later screen persona.He's not really the iconic John Wayne here. He's broad shouldered, trapping, tall, and athletic but his acting is rudimentary. He hadn't yet learned to express something by repressing it. His walk is still the walk of an ordinary man, although an unusually tall one.He couldn't have gotten much help from the director, Robert Bradbury, but little could have been expected, given the constraints on time and budget. It's hard to imagine that any of the scenes required more than one or two takes. There is an elemental quality to the action. Horses never walk, they always gallop, leaving clouds of dust behind them. Almost all the punches are roundhouse rights, although one does notice a few jabs, probably the contribution of Yakima Canutt. Canutt may have been the best physical actor in the Western business but isn't prominently featured in this effort.The director, Bradbury, had made a number of earlier Westerns near Lancaster, where Wayne lived, and Wayne had a chance to see the filming taking place, alongside his childhood friend, Bradbury's son, who later became known as Bob Steele. (He was Curly in "Of Mice And Men.") The movie is mostly of historical interest, though not badly done for its purposes.

Not being an expert on this genre I can't give The Dawn Rider an unqualified whoop or a hesitant snort either. I cut my eye-teeth on this type of B Western when a kid in the 60's - I've only seen a few hundred films like it since and it seems pretty much average.Wayne looked a very smooth and supple 28 year old, swinging into saddles for countless horse races, sorry, chases, but he was a much better character to watch as the craggy icon he later became. He, and all the characters (and the story) in TDR are necessarily flat and undeveloped - the kids in the cinema at the time weren't interested in multi-layered portrayals of Tolstoy magnitude, and Lone Star weren't going to give 'em it either!The DVD had new musical additions - I prayed for silence! But all in all a pleasant hour was spent by the TV at my ole homestead.