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Good concept, poorly executed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

. . . is the over-riding lesson of THE LUCKY TEXAN. When they have their Druthers, they'll rustle your cattle, swindle you out of your ranch, and swipe your gold mine, too, TEXAN teaches us. If these Fat Cat Robbers slip up enough so that there's a whiff of Crime in the air, they'll finger any surviving VICTIMS for these peccadilloes, with their legal lapdog sheriffs and judges only too eager to make such Trumped-up charges stick. All of the above takes place in TEXAN, as whistle-blower John Wayne yet again unmasks "The Men Behind the Curtain" (before he himself fell prey to Bad Influences, such as the infamous Yellow-Striper Ford, who back-shot Jesse James--or was it Dalton Trumbo?--when JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN). Good may appear victorious over Evil as TEXAN concludes, since it predates--by decades--Wayne's Evil Triumphant Trilogy (THE ALAMO, RIO BRAVO, and CHISUM), all of which feature a lawless Wayne killing good guys by the dozens. Too bad TEXAN writer\director Robert N. Bradbury did not put out ALL John Wayne movies.

My title is meant to emphasize the silent era-like features of this and many other early sound westerns. If you are used to silent films, this shouldn't bother you that much. The villains often have the exaggerated look of many silent film counterparts. The brawls, horse chases and stunts also often have the exaggerated and amateurish look of many silent films. The filming technique also often looks relatively crude, like the cheaper silent films. People apparently shot dead often conveniently resurrect later with just a head graze(The 2 apparent murders in this film turn out this way). All those highly unlikely coincidences that make the story turn out right have a silent era feel to them. Thus, some of the scenes could almost be pulled from a silent era film. This includes Wayne's(actually stunt man Yakima Canutt's) long skid sitting on a convenient tree limb, through a long large sluice tunnel. This tunnel just happened to begin where he tumbled down a long hill after missing on an attempted rider tackle, and just happened to end up where he could make another tackle attempt from a tree. We can imagine Charlie Chhaplin or Buster Keaton doing the same thing in a slightly different context. Another comedic scene was the chase via Model T and horse of the badies escaping on a motorized rail utility car. The model T and railcar finally collide after a passed up opportunity.. In the finale, the frustrated photographer stalks off, stepping high in Charlie Chaplin style. The courtroom scene with George Hayes disguised as a female relative, followed by the villains smashing through the window, could almost have been pulled off in a silent western, with a few quote cards.Aside from the comedic and stunt aspects, this film features a fairly complicated, if predictable, plot, with the operators of the mineral assay office running a general crime operation(somewhat like Soapy Smith), including rustling, claim and property swindling, gold weighing shaving and murder. They try to swindle Hayes out of his ranch and gold mine claims and put him 6 feet under. The sheriff's son is an independent badman. Both Wayne and Hayes spend a short time in jail as the chief suspect in murders. Each figures out how to get the other out legitimately and catch the real badmen. Barbara Sheldon, a curvaceous young blond, just happens to move in with grandpa Hayes shortly after Wayne does. She immediately takes to the Duke and he doesn't make any attempt to resist. All in all, its a better than average entertaining early sound western, and I'm glad I saw it.

This one combines some of the usual aspects of the Lone Star films (evil businessmen, blonde (grand) daughter, (twice) falsely arrested for murder) with elements of comedy. Jerry Mason (John Wayne) works with 'Old Timer' Benson (George Hayes) (Hey! Wasn't he the same age as John Wayne?) at a blacksmith shop and then panning for gold with him. The evil assayer and his henchman Joe (Yakima Canutt) conspire to steal the deed to the ranch, but are foiled in a courtroom scene where George Hayes is in drag, 'looking' and speaking like a woman. This was his big star turn. If you want to see him as a vile, vile, villain, check out the clunky serial "The Lost City" (1935). John Wayne and George Hayes share lots of screen time together. If you like that, it's a plus; otherwise, it's a long 55 minutes. And why is Barbara Sheldon shown making strange faces with her head cocked sideways looking in a store window? For some reason, we get bizarre chase sequences: Mason(actually the Great Yak) riding a tree branch down a tunneled sluice to capture a runaway villain (interesting though very unlikely given the locations); the evil doers escaping down railroad tracks in a motored rail car while being pursued by Mason on horseback and by Benson in an old hand cranked Tin Lizzie that keeps criss crossing the tracks as if they were all in a Keystone Kops or an Our Gang comedy.I think only one gunshot was fired in the whole movie! The cowboy chases on horseback across wide open spaces shooting back and forth at each other were nowhere to be seen in this Western! Since it was made in 1933, perhaps these stock sequences of later westerns hadn't yet been written in stone. I guess we have to give it an E for effort. It looks, though, like a film made by committee. For me, all these disparate elements did not combine into a coherent film.

"Lucky Texan" is one of a series of Lone Star westerns made by Wayne between 1933-35. This one is a cut above the average. The plot involves Wayne and his partner (George Hayes) finding gold and the efforts of baddies Lloyd Whitlock and Yakima Canutt to cheat them out of it. This film contains a couple of oddities for a series western. Firstly, while pursuing one of the bad guys on horseback, Wayne actually misses tackling him off of his horse and lands at the bottom of a ravine. But fear not. A large downward sloping sluce just happens to be nearby and the Duke grabs a tree branch, mounts it and slides down the sluce in time to leap up a tree and jump the fleeing villain. Secondly, the final chase sequence is also interesting in that the baddies are escaping in an old railway utility car and are pursued by Hayes in a vintage auto which criss crosses the tracks Keystone Cops style with the villains, and of course by Wayne on horseback.It is also noteworthy that Hayes, who played many different characters in this series, plays Jake Benson very close to his eventual "Gabby" character, which he had not fully developed at this time. The series also benefited from the stunt work of Yakima Canutt who can be clearly seen doubling for Wayne and others in this entry.