Sagebrush Trail

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Audience Member Not the best John Wayne movie but still well worth watching James Welch, Henderson, Arkansas September 10, 2023 Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 09/11/23 Full Review ashley h Sagebrush Trail is a decent film. It is about John Brant who escapes from prison and ends up out west where, after giving the local lawmen the slip, he joins up with an outlaw gang. John Wayne and Lane Chandler give good performances. The screenplay is entertaining but a little slow in places. Armand Schaefer did an alright job directing this movie. I liked this motion picture because of the action and adventure. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Maybe because this is one of the first early westerns I've ever seen so the typical plot points are new to me, or maybe because this is the first John Wayne film I've ever seen, but regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed this B western flick. It wasn't anything spectacular, but i enjoyed it. Bottom line, I'd recommend this short film to any western fans. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member This is one of John Wayne's earliest movies. Only John Wayne shows any acting ability in this movie. He plays an escaped convict who arrives as a hobo on a train that looks like a 1930's era steam engine and box cars. The box cars don't look that much different from the ones still used to this day. However as soon as he flees the sheriff and the railroad detectives he's in a world of horses and stage coaches. All the other actors are real rodeo cowboys. They make good stuntmen but bad actors. Young John Wayne gets to show off his athletic ability with some fancy mounting of horses. The story telling is choppy and hard to follow. A good writer and director could have made this into an interesting movie. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Escaped convict "John Bramt" (John Wayne) has been chased out west by a couple of lawmen. After giving them the slip, "Brant," who did not do the crime for which he was serving time for, joins up with an outlaw gang who have been on a crime spree. What the gang doesn't realize is that the man they know as "Smith" is doing whatever it takes to thwart the gang's criminal efforts as he and one of the outlaws (Lane Chandler) compete to get the attention of the young daughter (Nancy Shubert) of the local shopkeeper (Henry Hall). I believe this is the first John Wayne movie I've seen in its entirety, and I am somewhat disappointed. The story itself is pretty typical of Westerns from this era, and is pretty predictable. One thing that sticks out is the audio quality. In many outdoor scenes, you have to strain to hear the dialogue when there are other, much louder sounds in the scene. It is painfully obvious that natural sounds are used and no sound effects are used to sweeten the audio. Another problem is that the audio quality has not aged well. Much of the prerecorded music sounds quite muffled. Another problem is the that many of the interiors are obviously movie sets. The gang's hideout appears quite cramped, and the rock walls in the "mine" are obviously fabricated. There are some weak performances in this film, even from Wayne. Many times in this film it sounds like they aren't trying to make the dialogue believable. The movie was edited in a terrible way. At the start of the movie, the director opted for extremely brief scenes to set up the story. There were also a lot of sudden close-ups of performers as they delivered their lines. The cinematography, as a whole, was not done well at all in fact. The fight scenes were also done pretty poorly. Many of the punches appeared to have landed on their intended target a lot more softly than the target reacted. The fights were also contained in a small area at times. They are some of the worst fights I've seen filmed. None of the scenes truly stood out. The outdoor scenes didn't even use any shots that made you say "Wow, that's beautiful," in fact. The movie lacked any scenes that are memorable at all. Character development is seriously lacking in this film. None of the characters, minor and main, are developed enough to either care for or hate. They are also one-dimensional. At least 99% of the characters are completely forgettable. Personally, I would watch this on television when there is absolutely nothing else on that is worth seeing. I wouldn't even add it to my movie collection unless I was a hard core John Wayne fan to complete my collection of his films. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Excellent "B" western. Overall rating is a 40, but give it a 60 for its age. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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