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Editorial Reviews
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John Wayne's road to stardom needed some giddyup in the early 1930s; after a leading-man turn in The Big Trail, he quickly fell into B-movie obscurity. While waiting to vault to first-tier status in 1939's Stagecoach, he honed his talent with a set of six B-Westerns at Warner Brothers, shot in 1932-33. The series of snappy little films (under an hour each) allowed Warners to recycle footage (and plots) from a string of silent Westerns made with Ken Maynard, with the young Mr. Wayne stepping into Maynard's saddle. The Big Stampede doesn't have much drama but lives up to its title with a cattle-frenzy finale. Noah Beery Sr. plays the baddie, and Wayne's future Stagecoach co-star Berton Churchill plays Lew Wallace (the governor of New Mexico and the man who wrote Ben-Hur). It was shot by Ted McCord, who would go on to shoot The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and East of Eden. Wayne, 25 years old, plays the same naively heroic hero in each of the six films. He's lean and handsome and not yet grown into his talent. But you can see how much the camera likes him--as his future director Howard Hawks might have put it--and how much that famous stride is already coming into step. --Robert Horton
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
It was a great movie.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Big Stampede [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Can't believe how young John Wayne was in this film. His horse had the name "Duke". I thought that Mae Madison who played Ginger was very good. The stunts in the film were good too.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
ANOTHER EARLY STARRING ROLE FOR WAYNE,
This review is from: Big Stampede [VHS] (VHS Tape)
I've always considered it very strange why Wayne's westerns of the 1930's are not given the same sort of revered status that other western stars like Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers received. Sure they're B movies but so were the films by Cassidy and Rogers. They might not have been as good from a pure technical standpoint, but they weren't awful either.
Wayne plays deputy Sheriff John Steele as he goes undercover as a drifter in New Mexico to find out who is behind the cattle rustling. Ruthless Land baron Sam Crew sends his Henchman Arizona Frank Bailey out to capture a herd of cattle being brought in by some new settlers. Steele joins the settlers and evenutally saves the say as Crew and Bailey are brought to justice. At just 55 minutes this is a very quick film but quite action packed and very well done. One of Wayne's strongest early roles. Nice supporting cast including Noah Beery as Crew.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Early Wayne Western Have Similar Traits, And That's Fine,
By
This review is from: The Big Stampede (DVD)
A number of John Wayne's early westerns looked alike, but that's not a criticism because the handful I've seen were all entertaining. That includes this one.
Many of them only were about an hour long, had interesting (albeit strange) dialog, had a pretty lead female (here, Mae Madison) and a very talented horse named "Blue." Of course, the men were all tough guys. There is a lot of action and interesting scenes packed into this one hour. My only complaint was that Luis Alberini's character made the Mexicans look unnecessarily stupid.
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