Besides John Wayne, the stuntmen and their horses are the best part of the movie and they deserve a salute. This movie brings back some memories and emotions. As a young man in high school, I rode livery horses with friends and was very hard on them. So, I can picture myself riding one of the movie horses or having it go down head first and go sailing over its head. Yet there is a stunt in this movie that was unnecssarily cruel. At 00:49:50, stuntmen crash the wagon by throwing the front two horses and letting the rear horses run over them. First off, that was impressive, and the crew should have had a couple of cameras filmimg the stunt; maybe close up in the front, a side view, or maybe from the driver's seat! As much as I appreciate horse chases and horse wrecks, throwing the wagon horses was unnecessarly cruel and cold hearted. Looks like the front two horses were rigged with trip wires and thrown and the back two horses ran over the them. Being in harness and having the force of the wagon pushing them, the horses had no way out. This was a very cruel stunt that could have resulted in four trained horses being badly injured and destroyed. Had I been a supervisor, I would not have allowed that stunt to be performed. Yet, obviously, I was overruled. Lastly, I would not have wanted to be the wrangler that had to untangle the harnesses and work with the injured horses. The horse harnesses can run 125 pounds and higher. Now imagine trying to take the equipment off a large horse that can't get up or move due to serious or fatal injuries. Add to that, horses do not handle pain very well. Injured horses need careful and patient handling and can be heartbreaking to work with. During high school, I started riding livery horses. Eventually the way I treated the livery horses caught up with me. I was racing friends when my livery horse took a head first fall and I sailed over its head. I stood up and the horse couldn't. A wrangler from the barn made me unsaddle the horse and carry the saddle back to the barn. The owner, called a local cop, and my parents, and they made sure I paid for the horse. Also, I had to take a couple of months of riding lessons. Later, after high school, I took a few summer jobs at livery stables and had a chance to see the way others treated the horses. And I could see my younger self in others and as trhey whipped their horses with the reins and ran them. Eventually, I realized a couple of things that movies couldn't teach me. Some of the livery horses have big hearts. Many a time, a horse can't protect itself from a cruel or abusive rider. So, I thought about the livery horses I rode when I was younger and realized that I only wanted to run them for all they were worth and didn't care what happened to them. As for writing this, at a couple of the summer jobs, I had a chance to learn how to work with wagon horse teams. Those horses deserve some serious respect. A great deal of work goes into teaching them to work together and taking care of them
This was supposedly set in New Mexico, but most of the action was clearly filmed in the Owens Valley in California, in the area around Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills. You can clearly see much of the eastern Sierra, including Lone Pine Peak and Mt. Whitney, in many of the scenes.
LOL, it took me until about 3/4 of the movie was over before it dawned on me that John Wayne was the little boy shown with his grandparents in the opening of the movie. “ Duh, Carol “.
A solid and a good unfolding of the story. The gun slinging toward the end was excessive, probably drawn out to fill up the hour because the story was told economically up to that point. Nonetheless a good program for fans of the Duke!
Thank you for your movie page. You tube rentals have gotten stupid in price to rent or buy. On fixed incomes and I have no tv. We do not have cable where I live. And dish is real expense. Happy New year.
Only pay for internet. Cable is too much. Have a smart phone, my son n I split the cost. RU-vid is the way to go. I can check out videos at the local library.
Did you know we don't live in a "country", but we live in the States. Tennessee one of the best of the States. The liberals want us to believe we live in a country, like in Europe, but we don't. People in England call us by our original name; "the States".
An especially good script. For a long time I've seen Yakima Canutt's name in the credits. I didn't know what character he played until I finally googled him. I found out that he was prolific as a stunt coordinator and stuntman. I always thought he had an interesting voice and just found out that he had injured his voice and didn't like the sound of it when recorded. He and John Wayne were friends for life. Might be worth googling Yakima. There's so much good stuff about him.
A more recent commenter said the same thing about John Wayne and his voice. So which is it? Wayne or Canutt with the injured voice? Can't be both of them.
@@joehamlet7576By 1928, the talkies were coming out, and though he had been in 48 silent pictures, Canutt knew his career was in trouble.[5] His voice had been damaged from flu in the Navy. Wikipedia
That country in his early movies sure looks like the different mountain valleys in California. They were picture perfect scenic back then. Texas my eye not a mesquite bush or tree too be found dotted with Texas cedar that the cowboys curse burn and cut wherever they can. At least mesquite acts like protein rich fodder during the bean season and if their is drought the cattle will nibble around the torns.
Fantastic horseback riding ! 00:49:13 .... Imagine the rider standing next to the horse and giving it a pat on the neck, then mounting the horse and putting his spurs into the horse's side to make the horse jump into a strong lope. Horse ! Do your job ! , 00:51:22 - Thats one fortunate stunt horse. It deserves the rest of the day off.
There was fraud in Texas as well in other states after the civil war over taxes. I've often wondered if anyone has ever looked into that. After all of these years the legality would be a huge consideration.
These movies are great, but they were made by socialists, that's right. Texas never had any "public land". All the land is Texas, with very few exceptions, is private land, always has been. The country of Texas gave all the land of Texas to its citizens, huge chunks of it. The only exceptions were previous Spanish land grants, which were honored. The men that fought in the war of independence against Mexico were given whole sections of land, free.
