Mary McLaren | Through the Shattered Lens

Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie (Johnny Mack Brown) and Sandy Hopkins (Raymond Hatton) are sent to the frontier mining community of Goldville to determine who is responsible for hijacking all of the gold that should be coming out of the town. Not surprisingly, it’s all the work of another dastardly saloon owner (Kenneth MacDonald) who is planning on stealing all the gold, chasing off all the settlers, and then selling their land to the railroad company. While Sandy goes undercover as the town’s new preacher, Jack agrees to ride shotgun on a gold shipment, along with with Dan Baxter (Eddie Drew). Dan is in love with Jane Simms (Inna Gest), the daughter of honest miner Bill Simms (Kernan Cripps).

Johnny Mack Brown made a countless number of westerns for several different production companies but it seems like they always featured a crooked saloon owner and a plan to sell the land to a railroad company. Luckily, nobody watches these movies for the plots and that was probably true even when they were first released. People watch these movies for the nostalgia value of watching a movie where it’s good vs evil and good always triumphs without leaving any sort of lingering doubt about whether or not the heroes did the right thing. Johnny Mack Brown is as authentic on a horse and carrying a gun as he ever was and there’s a scene where he manages to get a gun despite being tied up that’s pretty cool. The appeal of Johnny Mack Brown was that he always seemed like he could do the things that he did in the movies in real life as well. Raymond Hatton provides comic relief, pretending to know the hymns being sung by his congregation and providing some songs of his own. There’s enough gun fights and horse chases to provide nostalgic happiness for fans of the genre and that’s the important thing.

As a young man, John Wyatt (John Wayne) witnessed an attack on a wagon train by the evil outlaw Wick Ballard (Jack Curtis). John’s parents were killed and his younger brother Jim was abducted. Years later, the grown John Wyatt realizes that the law cannot be depended upon in the wild west so he raises his own band of vigilantes and delivers justice to the frontier. (Wayne’s second-in-command is played by the legendary Glenn Strange.) Wyatt remains committed to taking down Ballard. Going undercover as John Allen, Wyatt joins a cattle drive that he thinks will be attacked by Ballard. Also working undercover as a member of the cattle drive is Jim Wyatt (Frank McGlynn Jr), John’s long-lost brother, who is now working for Ballard! Both the Wyatt bothers end up falling for Mary Gordon (Sheila Bromley), the daughter of rancher Lafe Gordon (Jim Farley).

This was a good example of the the type of B-movies that John Wayne made in the years before John Ford cast him in Stagecoach. The story is simple but Wayne gives a commanding performance as Wyatt. Unlike many of the B-movies that featured Wayne as a callow singing cowboy or a fun-loving rogue, Westward Ho features Wayne playing the type of character that he would often play after he became a star. Wyatt is determined to get justice for his family and to protect the innocents who are attacked by men like Ballard. The presence of his brother in the enemy camp adds an extra dimension to Westward Ho. Wyatt learns that vengeance isn’t everything.

It’s only 61 minutes long but it tells a good story and it has all the gunfights and horse chases that Western fans expect from their movies. Of Wayne’s poverty row westerns, Westward Ho is one of the better ones.