Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Bill Slocum Watching those two icons of early Westerns, John Wayne and George Hayes, play off each other years before people knew them as Duke and Gabby, is worth something. At least "The Lucky Texan" gives you that.Jerry Mason (Wayne) and Jake Benson (Hayes) luck into a big gold strike, but their haul attracts the interest of some shady assayers who want not only the gold but Benson's ranch besides. Can Mason save Benson from wrongful imprisonment? Can Benson save Mason from same? Will Mason wind up with Benson's pretty granddaughter?Spoiler alert - What do you think?Wayne's Lone Star westerns are often criticized for formulaic plots, which is unfair here. You get two almost completely unconnected plots in this one. Neither makes sense, but at least they defy reasonable expectations that way. In the first, Benson gets arrested for murder by a sheriff who apparently didn't bother to make sure the victim was dead first. In the second, those assayers make their play for the gold with the subtlety of the 7th Cavalry.The only thing "Lucky Texan" has going for it is lucky indeed: Duke and Gabby in their second-ever on screen pairing, the first one where Wayne didn't have to pretend to sing and play guitar. There's real pleasure to be had watching the two meet in their opening scene, even with their exposition-laden dialogue."Say, you're a regular mountain, ain't yuh?" Benson asks Mason right off, who grins easily in reply. You want to hang with these guys, however dull the story around them.Lone Star did well with Wayne once they retired the singing cowboy shtick and worked humor more directly in his films, like here. "The Lucky Texan" actually goes pretty far in this direction, once the wheels come off story #2. Benson is the star of a wild courtroom scene which really deserves to be seen, for the total commitment of Hayes if nothing else. By movie's end, the villains are reduced to comic foils, which is fine as they weren't working as villains. I found the last 15 minutes pretty enjoyable overall. Not as thought-out or clever as it could have been, but fun.All this doesn't quite redeem "Lucky Texan." It's just too goofy otherwise, like Wayne's big stunt riding an upright stick down a log flume to catch up with a bad guy after falling off his horse. You get some schlocky dialogue ("So that's your game, eh?" is something Hayes actually says when the bad guys get the draw on him) and head-scratching moments like why a bad guy trying to get a canteen of gold from a bucking mule doesn't just shoot the beast.I'm glad he didn't; this is one Lone Star western where it's safe to say no animals were harmed in the production. It's not much to crow about otherwise, yet seeing Wayne and Hayes begin to define their enjoyable partnership is some compensation. Just try to ignore the feeble excuse of a plot being kicked around them.

FightingWesterner John Wayne and blacksmith George "Gabby" Hayes strike gold in a nearby creek, prompting crooked gold office employees into tricking Gabby into signing his property over to them in an attempt to get closer to the gold. Complicating things is the no good son of the town's sheriff who frames poor Gabby for attempted murder.Another good film from the Duke's tenure as a Lone Star/Monogram contract star, this is fast-paced, well edited and a heckuva lot of fun.As well as playing the chief heavy, Yakima Cannut appears to have performed every stunt in the movie himself. For example, in the scene where Wayne confronts the sheriff's son, the escaping villain turns into an easily recognizable Cannut who does a flying leap onto his horse. Wayne runs after him and also turns into Cannut. He then leaps onto White Flash and begins chasing himself!A great climax begins with scene-stealer Gabby in a dress. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he really was an old woman!

zeppo-2 One of the pleasures of watching old films like this is seeing some of the more bizarre twists and turns.Here we have the veteran actor Gabby Hayes in an early role disguising himself in drag to come to the rescue of John Wayne who has been accused of Gabby's own murder. To make sure he isn't recognise by the real villains, he uses his old theatre background to pass incognito.Oh, I bet that excuse has been used by a lot of other transvestites in the past, "Just throwing a dress on, dear, to go help someone in need." Sadly, Gabby makes one of the ugliest women I've ever seen, you think he could have made more of an effort. Get a makeover, darling! The rest of the film is very much your basic western, evil land grabbers and gold stake claim jumpers. With some horse chases and fist fights thrown in.But it's moments like Gabby's that some of us live for, that spark of strangeness in something otherwise rather dull. Sometimes you never know quite what you'll come across.

Mike-764 Jerry Mason finishes college and goes back to live on the ranch of his father's best friend, Jake Benson. Mason and Benson soon find a rich vein of gold in a nearby creek and are able to secretly mine the gold and bring it in to the assay office of Harris and his partner Cole. Harris tries to figure out where Benson's mine is located, but the two won't disclose it at the moment. Harris figures out that the mine must be near Benson's ranch, so he tricks Benson into signing the deed over to Harris. After Benson is released from jail following his arrest for the attempted murder of the banker (actually done by the sheriff's son to pay off a gambling debt to Harris), Harris and Cole decide to strike, ambushing Benson in the desert and framing Mason for the crime, then trying to take over the ranch. Benson is able to make it back to his ranch and sends Betty (his visiting granddaughter) to Mason, where he devises a plan to capture the real crooks. The film is a letdown for Wayne with his only memorable scene being him riding down a log flume on a stick to capture Parker. Hayes is great here, first showing the Gabby/Windy characteristics that would make him a B western icon. Sheldon is terrible here and appears she won the role in a raffle, and is nearly as bad as the script and directing by Bradbury, who is unable to keep a constant flow in the movie. The subplot with the sheriff's son shooting the banker and Benson's arrest has nothing to do with the rest of the film and the ending best belongs in a Keystone Kops short rather than this film. Rating, based on B westerns, 3.