Big Stampede (1932) Review

Customer Ratings:

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.

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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.