Tuesday, August 18, 2009

John Wayne Westerns Pt. 2: The Range Feud.

Following his appearance in The Big Trail, John Wayne had parts in four non-westerns, playing a college student, an architect, an army lieutenant in love with his commanding officer’s wife, and a corpse. His next western was The Range Feud (1931), a Buck Jones picture. You’ll notice he got second billing, nosing out Buck’s horse Silver.

Buck plays Sheriff Buck Gordon (funny how often his characters were named Buck). He’s forced to arrest his stepbrother Clint Turner (John Wayne) for murder, then scramble to save him from hanging. Clint, you see, is accused of killing his girlfriend’s father, who is himself accused of rustling. Clint had plenty of motive, because the young lovers were from feuding families and forbidden to see each other. Romeo and Juliet on the range. Wayne and Jones remained friends until Buck’s death in 1942.

3 comments:

Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...

Reviewing Wayne's B WEsterns is a great idea. Please keep doing this.

Evan Lewis said...

Thanks, Gary. I will!

Jack said...

Interesting that Buck Jones played heroes called Buck. I seem to recall that John Wayne did a lot of that in his later movies.