SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

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.

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Bill Slocum Even for John Wayne's legendarily weak Lone Star westerns, this one's a real turkey.Wayne plays John Travers, who takes over as sheriff of the terrorized town of Little Rock after a horse-stealing, stage-robbing mastermind known as "The Shadow" kills the last "star-packing" lawman. With the help of his Indian partner Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers investigates how the Shadow operates and leads a gang of locals against him.Dan Phillips makes a great point in his review here. Early in the movie, we see Yak tell Travers "two men going to hold up stage... Coyote Canyon...much money on stage." So what does Travers do? He holds up the stage himself, disarms the guard riding shotgun, a guy named Joe, and rides off with the loot, leaving the disarmed guard and driver to be shot by the hold-up men, the guard fatally. Travers only rides in after the hold-up men ride off, to save the driver and the pretty girl Anita (Verna Hillie) on the stage.What the heck!We are told early on by rancher Matt Matlock (George – not yet Gabby – Hayes), that the Shadow "has absolutely no regard for human life." That apparently holds true for Travers as well, who shares a laugh with Anita after the shooting death of poor Joe. Sure, he foiled the robbery by stealing the money, but why couldn't he and Yak have hung around and stopped the stage robbery by riding up on the bad guys from behind?You aren't supposed to ask questions with these sorts of films, made for young boys who craved adventure. But I'm pretty sure they were bright enough to wonder about Travers, too. Later in the film, Travers leads a captured baddie to a wall safe from which the Shadow gives his orders. Travers is only a few feet away from the guy, separated by an open safe door. Why not grab the Shadow then and there?The only explanation we get is given at the start of the movie, by Yak: "More trouble, more fun." If Travers stopped the Shadow then, he wouldn't have had another chance to save Anita from a runaway wagon."The Star Packer" does have a lot of stunts. I counted five horse spills effected by trip-wires, those things that the ASPCA finally put a stop to which killed many of the horses. They made the horses fall end-over-end, risking broken necks and legs. You don't really need them, and other Lone Star westerns don't use them nearly so often. Here, director Robert N. Bradbury was taking no chances. He knew he had a bore of a story on his hands, and must have counted on the stunts to liven things up.The usual Lone Star gang is in evidence here, including Canutt and Hayes playing on opposite sides of the law, though not the same sides their characters were usually on. Earl Dwire, a personal favorite, is a bad guy here, like he was half the time in these movies, as a villain who sneers "We'll be outta here by noon tomorrow" when Travers puts him behind bars.Wayne is more wooden here than normal, and kind of dull, unusually so for him. He generates zero chemistry with Hillie and seems ready to move on to his next on-screen adventure. The film moves so predictably that I can't blame him. Even with a town interestingly tricked-up with hollowed logs and secret passages, everything moves in such a slow fashion you don't care how it ends, just so it does.Will Travers save the town and win the girl? I could have cared less. All I could do was think of poor Joe and those horses. They deserved better. So do you.

Uriah43 Suspecting that a stagecoach carrying money is about to be ambushed by bandits "John Travers" (John Wayne) decides to rob the stage first and then quickly rides off. When the bandits arrive only minutes later and discover that there is no money they shoot both the driver and the guard and then let the stagecoach drive out-of-control with a young woman passenger by the name of "Anita Matlock" (Verna Hillie) still in the cabin. Fortunately, John Travers manages to catch up to the stagecoach before any harm comes to her. Once they ride into the nearby town it's learned that 2 sheriffs have been killed by these bandits who are led by a man known only as "The Shadow". And then the 3rd sheriff is shot and killed as well which causes John Travers to volunteer to become the next one. At any rate, rather than detail any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that although it's quite short (only 53 minutes) it managed to condense enough of the story to turn out an okay little western all the same. Obviously, it's not the best John Wayne movie ever made but those who enjoy his movies might want to give this one a try too. That said I rate it as about average.

John W Chance This epic 'Lone Star' effort has a huge cast (of riders), but seems too squeezed for its 53 minutes. It is filled with serial trophes (mystery villain, hidden gunshots, hollowed tree, 'ghostly' haunts, a final mass posse chase to capture the villain), but in contrast to most other Lone Star films, it tries to do too much in too short a time. It seems rushed. This one could have used a sprawling 90 minutes to: flesh out all the evil henchmen introduced by name, including 'Chuckawalla' Red, 'Slippery' Williams and 'Spike' Morgan; show the back story of how George Hayes took over the ranch; give the faithful Indian companion,"Yak," (played by Yakima Canutt himself!) more to do; and give development to the romance between the interesting blonde, Verna Hillie (showcased in a subtle bed sequence), and John Wayne --the last scene shows their domesticity with their now five year old son! (Contrast this with the last 30 seconds of Buster Keaton's 1927 'College'!) Yak, skin darkened to look more 'Indian,' speaks in Tonto talk: "We do-um," and "Hi you skookem! Big fun!" But mostly John Wayne just tells him to "Stay here and keep an eye out..." You can see even more of the versatility of the pre- 'Gabby' George Hayes as a REALLY despicable villain in the clunky serial 'The Lost City.' Finally, even though the movie moves along interestingly enough, suddenly, everyone in town is going to chase after the villain and his gang. The cutting and pace of the film abruptly quickens, and while we see in the final epic sequence hundreds of riders (well, maybe only about 40), it came up too fast for me, and the film ended too quickly.I'll give it an E for Epic, in other words, a five.

johnjredington This is a real B movie, right down to the historical imprecision of a location featuring both stage coaches and telephones, its clichéd dialogue, a totally predictable plot straight out of the comics and enough protracted chases and gunfights to fill in the gaps left by a very thin script.The Duke and his entourage provide plenty of ironic laughs but, if you want to take the movie at face value, it is quite enjoyable. The good guys win, the bad guys get their comeuppance, the Duke gets his gal and Yakima Canutt shows his tricks all in a setting that engrossed generations of schoolboys over most of the 20th century.The Star Packers should also be of interest to students of cinema as its structure encapsulates the early movement of silent film into the talkies.