CarsonDugal I liked the movie Blue Steel (1934) because the villains were low life's like the government. The difference then was they were bleeding the town dry by up front robbing them in the mountain passes. Now it's back door thievery through the counterfeiting the government does.Anyway lots of parallels. The bad guys were also the high up in society in the town and pretended to be very concerned. The plan they had was to bleed them down to where they all had to pull up stakes and leave. Of course the good/bad guy was willing to make a pittance offering of loans on their land so they could maybe make it through the winter. If they couldn't pay it back he would own all of their land. Their land supposedly had a gold vein running under it.

JohnHowardReid The 5th of John Wayne's 14 Lone Star Westerns is nothing if not a lively piece. True, it gets off to a remarkably slow start, but once the bandits arrive on the scene the pace picks up no end. Although the heroine is somewhat lacking in thespian talent, she's pretty enough and has little to do or say anyway. It's Wayne and Hayes who set the action rolling and keep it up—interspersed with some spectacular Canutt stunt-work—right to the finish line. And it's good to see Yakima Canutt in a sizable role on camera as well as doubling Wayne in the action spots.Director Robert North Bradbury has a grand time once the action switches to the wide open spaces. You can virtually see him riding the camera car as it swoops along with galloping-hell-for-leather riders in super-fast tracking shots. And I love those whip pans!Photographer Archie Stout, a specialist in location work, is also most at home with awesome vistas of wide open plains, ringed by rugged mountains and fleecy clouds in the Alabama Hills, Ca.

John W Chance A fairly involving 'Lone Star' film (even though it lacks enough dialog to provide any character) because of: 1) The opening sequence, with great silences, where we are caught up in John Wayne's mysterious and sudden presence in a hotel during a rain storm, 2) the registering 'bride' and 'bridegroom' at the hotel, shy and secretly excited; later the bridegroom, George Nash in his last film, comes back from the bridal suite saying 'I can't find it.' 3) Yakima Canutt's amazing stunt work-- pulling up a fallen Eleanor Hunt thru the coach horse team, and then helping her onto John Wayne's horse, 4) the extensive final chase sequence, excitingly paced and edited as the bad guys (at least 9 of them) chase our heroes across the vast prairies -- whew! This time, without any preamble of romantic intentions anywhere else in the film, John Wayne and the girl do ride off into the sunset holding hands!

bsmith5552 "Blue Steel" is one of a series of "B" westerns made by John Wayne in the 1933-35 period. As with most entries in the series, these Lone Star productions had a stock company all their own. Robert N. Bradbury (father of Bob Steele) directed most of them. The supporting cast usually consisted of George "Gabby" Hayes, Earl Dwire and Yakima Canutt playing various roles. A definite asset to the series was Canutt who doubled Wayne and perfected many of his legendary stunts in these films. Unfortunately, he also "acted" in many of them. This one starts out amid a driving rain storm. John Carruthers (Wayne) seeks shelter by sneaking into a hotel run by a sleeping Hank (George Cleveland). Also seeking shelter is Sheriff Jake (Hayes) who is after The Polka Dot Bandit. As luck would have it, the bandit (Canutt) robs the safe while everyone is sleeping and Jake sees Carruthers going through the safe after the bandit escaped and thus blames him for the robbery. Jake trails Carruthers to a cabin and is about to arrest him when they hear shots. Now it seems town boss Malgrove (Edward Piel) and his gang are preventing supplies and ammunition from reaching town. Betty Mason (Elinor Hunt) and her father (Lafe Mckee) are attempting to bring in the latest shipment when they are ambushed and the father is killed. Carruthers and Jake rescue Betty and bring her to town where it seems Malgrove has taken a special interest in her. Well, needless to say, Carruthers sorts things all out by the final fade out and everyone except the bad guys, lives happily ever after. Wayne was still honing his skills at this time and it shows at times, but he was getting better with each picture. Hayes played a number of roles in this series from villain to father of the heroine to sidekick to lawman. He had not yet arrived at his "Gabby" character although Sheriff Jake was pretty close. Earl Dwire has a minor role as one of Piel's henchmen.