The Liberal Use of Dynamite During the Chase Scene

A recent podcast found on the excellent Sixgun Justice site metioned the low budget Westerns starring John Wayne that were churned out almost non-stop during the 1930s. I've seen quite a few of them and they are inevitably entertaining, but the podcast highlighted one particular film that I hadn't seen. So, naturally, I needed to watch it as soon as possible.

In Blue Steel (1934), John Wayne plays a U.S. Marshall looking into trouble hitting a remote town. The town is essentially besieged by an organized band of outlaws who have cut off supply shipments, leaving the local ranchers low on both food and ammunition.

Wayne's character--named John Carruthers--teams up with the local sherrif, played by George Hayes before Hayes he developed his "Gabby" character and the two to look into things. He soon has reason to suspect a local businessman named Malgrove (Edward Peil) is the leader of the outlaws. Malgrove wants to force the townspeople to sell out to him cheaply because he's discovered gold in the area.

One of the victims of the outlaw gang is the father of Betty Mason (Eleanor Hunt), who was killed while trying to bring a mule train full of supplies into town. Even aside from abruptly becoming an orphan, she's soon up to her hips in trouble, including getting held prisoner by the bad guys. So its up to the Duke and his sidekick to rescue her, recover the stolen supplies and, of course, stay alive.

Blue Steel isn't perfect. It's biggest flaw is that the bad guys never really seem that impressive. In fact, Malgrove gives away his entire plot early on because he doesn't know that Betty (whom he had just invited to his ranch) is standing nearby listening. John and Betty somehow manage to fall in love despite not sharing more than a dozen lines of dialogue together throughout the movie.

But despite this, the movie is a lot of fun. The plot moves along quickly along a reasonably logical path. Typical of B-movie Westerns, the location photography is wonderful. And the action sequences are particularly good, especially the climactic chase scene. The good guys are racing to town with a wagon-full of supplies while the outlaws pursue them. A liberal use of dynamite allows them to escape and eventually wipe out the bad guys. In the meantime, famed stuntman Yakima Canutt doubles for Wayne to long enough to pull off a magnificent stunt that looks ahead to what he would accomplish on Stagecoach a few years later.  Blue Steel is 50 minutes well spent.