West of the Divide (1934)

Too much of everything

An Exercise In Nonsense

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Ted Hayden (John Wayne) and his pal Dusty (Gabby Hayes) find wanted outlaw Gat Ganns dying. Hayden decides to impersonate Ganns in order to get a job as a hired gun for evil rancher Gentry (Lloyd Whitlock). He hopes to find out who killed his father and what happened to his brother. He also meets a girl who was shot in the head (!) by some of Gentry's men. Romance surely must follow.Another John Wayne cheapie western made early in his career. As with most of his other cheapies, this one also features Gabby Hayes and Yakima Canutt. Yakima's stunts are the best part. It's a watchable oater but nothing to get worked up over. Try to catch the version without the irritating electronic score.

West of the Divide finds the Duke as a man searching for his younger brother and at the same time the people who kidnapped him and murdered their father.The film opens with a piece of good luck coming their way in the person of the dying gunman Gatt Ganns who's been hired by Lloyd Whitlock to kill rancher Lafe McKee. Of course Whitlock is once again a villain in the Snidely Whiplash tradition who not only wants the ranch, but also has evil designs on McKee's daughter Virginia Brown Faire.In reviewing B westerns, sometimes I have a tendency to reach back to those 19th century morality plays so popular in that era. Whitlock in fact even laughs like a villain in one of those plays. For reference you should see the Irene Dunne-Allan Jones version of Showboat to see just the kind of drama they used to put on then. It survived in the B western, John Wayne's as well as other's.Wayne of course by the end solves all the problems concerned and the villain gets his just desserts. We can't say how though.The Duke pretends to be the recently deceased Mr. Ganns to get the goods on the bad guys along with sidekick Gabby Hayes. He discovers a young kid being raised by one of the outlaws. Interesting in this B western set firmly in the 19th century morality play tradition, we also have a topic so very gingerly touched on as child abuse. A rather adult theme for a western or any kind of picture at that time.Wayne was just beginning his stay at Monogram Pictures Lone Star westerns, this was his third. Monogram had a stock company to rival the much better one of John Ford. Note how for the next three or four years, the casts are just about the same in every Wayne western at that studio. It gets hard to keep these in chronological order, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these weren't shot simultaneously.The best you can say about the Monogram films is that they kept John Wayne employed, not something easily said during the Depression. And they beat those serials he did for Mascot. West of the Divide will never be on any John Wayne fans top 10 list.

It appears a little more thought than usual went into this Lone Star Western, as the story line is fairly consistent and director Robert North Bradbury throws in a few elements I haven't seen yet after watching almost all of them. Wayne's character is Ted Hayden, who takes on the guise of wanted murderer Gat Ganns when it might help him get the goods on bad guy Gentry (Lloyd Whitlock). George Hayes, not yet known as Gabby, teams up with Wayne to outwit the baddies and save the day for the Winters (Lafe McKee and Virginia Faire Brown).It struck me that Wayne's appearance in the film bears some resemblance to another cowboy star, Hopalong Cassidy. His character wears all black, including the tall cowboy hat, and he rides a white horse in the story. Of course, Hoppy teamed with Gabby to round out that connection as well.The story itself is fairly formulaic, bad guy Gentry wants the Winters ranch and they aren't selling. Stealing their money and their cattle, and getting rid of Mr. Winters all sounds pretty familiar, with Gentry hiring the phony Ganns to help pull it off. Then he plans to eliminate Ganns as well, by killing him and claiming the reward money. Needless to say, the good guys figure it all out, and the payoff is a beaut. As Gentry staggers out of a cabin following a fight with Hayden, his own men gun him down by mistake - OOPS! Yakima Canutt performs some of the daring stunts he's known for, one involves bringing two buckboard horses to a halt after they've broken away from their rig, with Yak riding the hitch like a pair of water skis. There's a wilder one though, when as Hayden, he dives off his horse and through the window of a cabin in pursuit of Gentry. It's one of the better stunts you'll see Yak perform in this or any movie.Typically, John Wayne gets the girl at the end of the picture, but it's not surprising. Earlier in the story, his character Hayden remarks to Gentry - "...I'll stay at the Winters place tonight, I got a few things I want to pick up". The difference this time out though, the film doesn't end in a clinch between the new couple. Instead, they chase down young Jim Hayden after he embarrasses big brother and Fay into a match up.For trivia fans, you might want to keep that 'Wanted' poster for Gat Ganns in mind if you look up some more of Wayne's Lone Star films. It appears again tacked to a cabin wall in a scene from "The Trail Beyond". Even in the Thirties they found ways to economize.

I bought this film because a book I read stated that it was the firstfilm that was important in the development of the "Gabby" (George)Hayes character who was so enjoyable in the Hopalong Cassidy &Roy Rogers (& others) films of the 1930s & 1940s. Hayes hereplays a character named "Dusty." He has a scruffy, grizzled look,but doesn't yet have the beard that came later. Hayes has thesame voice & intonation as he used later, but engages in none ofthe comedic antics that where such a big part of his "Gabby"character. Is it a coincidence that John Wayne rides a white horse,wears a big 10 gallon black hat & black shirt, & has the samesidekick as Hopalong Cassidy did, all two years before Hoppy gotstarted in the movies? The Hopalong Cassidy movie characterseems to bear more resemblance to John Wayne in this moviethan he does to the Hoppy character as portrayed in the ClarenceMulford books! Blooper: John Wayne's kid brother calls him "Dad"in one scene! This is an enjoyable film, especially if you like GabbyHayes. What ruined it for me was a new soundtrack (basically,swirling organ music) that was unnecessary & detracted from themovie. I have the SONY release, copyrighted 1985 by Fox/Lorber,so beware of that version if you like your old movies to beunadulterated, as I do.