Customer Reviews

The Telegraph Trail / Somewhere in Sonora / The Man from Monterey

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4 star:		(3)
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Wayne made six black & white B-Western films for Warner Brothers during the early-thirties the three on show here are all from 1933. They fall midway between THE BIG TRAIL (1929) and STAGECOACH (1938). This period that could well be called his apprenticeship years, they were also highly prolific years in fact Wayne appeared in eleven films during 1933.

THE TELEGRAPH TRAIL (55 minutes) John Trent (Wayne) is the buckskinned-army scout who volunteers to finish connecting the telegraph wires across the plains. In the way are evil trader Gus Lynch (Albert J Smith) who stirs up Indian chief High Wolf (Yakima Canutt) to lead a revolt. Corporal Tippy (Frank McHugh) and Alice Keller (Marceline Day) line up with Trent, who is also ably assisted by "Miracle Horse" Duke who incidentally appears in all three movies. Much of the action footage comes from the 1926 silent western RED RAIDERS starring Ken Maynard. For the one and only time in his career Wayne wears a pair of pistols with buts facing forward in the style of "Wild Bill" Elliott.

SOMEWHERE IN SONORA (57 minutes) In Twin Forks John Bishop (Wayne) is falsely accused of cheating in a stagecoach race. Bob Leadly (Henry B. Walthalt) vows to clear Bishop, in return learning that young Bart Leadly (Paul Fix) has fallen in with the notorious Monte Black (J. P. Mcgowan) Brotherhood of Death gang and are holed up over the Mexican border somewhere South of Sonora. Bishop sets out on Duke with two sidekicks to rescue Bart. Much use is made of stock-footage from the 1927 silent western of the same name starring Ken Maynard and his horse Tarzan. This film was the first of many that well-known western stalwart Paul Fix would appear with John Wayne

THE MAN FROM MONTEREY (57 minutes) In 1848 US army Captain John Holmes (Wayne) is sent from Monterey, California on a mission to convince rich land owner Don Jose Castanares (Lafe McKee) to register his land or else it will fall into the public domain. Unbeknown to Castanares his so called friend Don Pablo Gonzales (Francis Ford) and his son Don Luis Gonzales (Donald Reed) are trying to grab the land from him. Further complicating the issue is Castanares daughter Dolores (Ruth Hall) who is being pressurised into marrying Don Luis. The young Captain Holmes sets out to solve both problems. Once again silent Ken Maynard stock-footage is used throughout. The above Francis Ford was the elder brother of John Ford who would latter direct Wayne over many years in most if not all of his best work.

In 1933 the talkies were in their infancy and much of the acting appears a bit stilted at times by today's standards, but they are if you include the stock footage 75 to 80 years old and should be judged as such! Young John Wayne acquits himself pretty well in all three, except for the poor sword fighting sequence in the last film. The quality of transfer to DVD is generally very good with just the odd minor glitch. All together an interesting look at three likable early John Wayne quickie-Westerns.

I just purchased this disk and have browsed through the shortish movies in short order....they are fun, obviously b westerns. The prints are much better than I anticipated and much cleaner than the normal PD ripoffs we are used to for this era. Its great to see a very young John Wayne, when his shoulders were broad and his waist narrow....and with his own hair!

Waynes acting isn't terrible at all..and as i said..the prints are NOT restored by any means but they at least look to be pulled from the best available negative and not dubbed from late night tv. I'm looking forward to the other "Three-fer" WB just put on on Wayne as well as the two on Randolph Scott (although his are color films from the 50's so the production values and story lines should be a big jump above this 30's era B Westerns....which by the way I could watch over and over...while "The Departed" which I caught at the theatres a couple weeks ago...Once was enough.

I purchased this as a gift for my father who loves western movies. He absolutely loved the movies. The sounds quality is not so great in one of the movies, but he said that increasing the volume works. I would imagine the producing company did the best they could considering the age of the movies.

I needed Somewhere in Sonora for my John Wayne Collection even though it is one of his older movies. Without watching him act in his older movies you can't appreciate him in his modern day movies, might say they were his stepping stones. I enjoy each & ever one of his movies

I enjoyed the three short movies with John Wayne and "Duke" the horse. The packaging and the movie itself were both in excellent condition. Thanks

This trio set was done by Leon Schlesinger in 1933.
They are wonderful little hour long stories with the Duke (John wayne) and his very smart horse (called Duke) and wonderful supporting characters. Only thing lacking (for me) is color but the processing for the old b/w film is very good. I highly recommend these western vignettes.

I am a John Wayne fan big time and I am trying to get all of his movies, at one time I had 192 of the then last November some one broke into my home and among other things took 50 of my John Wayne DVD's so now am trying to replace them a few at a time Thank You for being one sorce for me Darlene