Sagebrush Trail

Sagebrush Trail (1933)
Dir: Armand Schaefer
Staring John Wayne, Yakima Canutt

On the run after being framed for a murder, Brant (Wayne) joins into a gang of criminals. He begins to sabotage the crimes that the gang is attempting while looking for the real killer.



This is a fairly typical poverty row B-western, and it's also kind of bland. It mainly suffers from the fact that it feels like it starts in the middle of the story, with Wayne's character having already been framed, arrested, and his escape from jail. It feels like the movie skipped over one of the more interesting parts of the story. It also seems to suffer from logic problems, where the villain's gang starts having their plots foiled after Brant's arrival. At one point one of the gang members points this out to the boss, but he's all "no way, this dude's cool" and they keep having problems. The films biggest problem is that it feels a bit repetitive, and even at 54 minutes it feels too long.


It's an early Wayne film, so he's not as good or confident as he was later, but Yakima Canutt is better in the film as the bad guy, and as Wayne's stunt double. The stunt work is some of the best things about the movie, but at the same time they aren't good enough to recommend sitting through just to see them. But it isn't awful.

Honestly I would recommend something else to someone wanting to watch a quick John Wayne   poverty row western, like Blue Steel. But this one isn't awful, but it's just kind of bland.