weezeralfalfa
The plot of this1935 Lone Star John Wayne oater makes no sense to me! Supposedly, the road from ? to Rainbow Valley was washed out by a flash flood, and the local criminal element wants it to remain that way, to aid in their criminal activities, and induce the gold miners to abandon their diggings for the criminals to take over. But, in the beginning ,Wayne rides over the 'trail' from ? to Rainbow Valley, and meets Gabby Hayes, stuck with his primitive car needing radiator water. Wayne empties his canteen and the two resume their journeys to Rainbow Springs, along a wide 'road'. Wayne foils an attack on the auto, and Gabby continues on toward Rainbow Valley, delivering the mail to the P.O. Obviously, the existing road is good enough for an auto to traverse, so what's the problem??!!........Also, things get confusing for me near the end. Supposedly, there is a road work gang ,the criminal gang, and a citizen mob converging on the road work site. But, it looks like the mob confronts the work gang, which looks like it is the criminal gang! The whole bandit gang is blown up as they scramble to get out the way, right to where the dynamite is buried. The head criminal has a fight with Wayne, and somehow accidently pushes the plunger for this dynamite. Wayne then uses the remainder of a dynamite, which he had fenagled from the gang, to finish building the road. See it at YouTube.
Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . on which the first automobile arrives, which turns out to be Gabby Hayes in a Stanley Steamer (a steam-powered car, NOT a carpet cleaner's orange van). The outlaws, of course, keep their horses. (As Charlton Heston once said, "When horses are outlawed, only outlaws will have horses.") But every single Honest Citizen in RAINBOW VALLEY sells their horses (except for Gabby Hayes, who keeps his around for when his auto runs out of steam; at the rate Toyotas seem to be breaking down nowadays, they ought to have horse hitching posts up front, too). This American Trait of Fickle Consumerism which causes the RAINBOW VALLEY town folk to betray their trusty steeds backfires, of course. When the Bad Guys set out to blow up the new road being built for Regular Cars such as Packards and DeSotos, the 50-geezer town Vigilante Committee is forced to trot five miles ON FOOT (lugging their rifles and shotguns), since they're totally Horseless, and their cars cannot be brought in yet. They're too winded to shoot straight when they finally reach the outlaw horde, so John Wayne is forced to set an example for Today's Dallas Police Chief by simply blowing them up with explosives.
Jay Raskin
This has a cast of over forty, which makes it twice as big as the usual Lonestar production.Gabby Hayes carries much of the movie with his usual gruff-old-goat character. Unfortunatey, he's only in the first fifteen and last ten minutes of the film.John Wayne plays a "Special Agent" John Martin who builds a road to the outlaw forsaken town of Rainbow Valley. He basically sleepwalks through the part.As other reviewers noted, it is a bit irritating that the female characters are always dressed in 1930's fashion.This seems to be about average for a Lonestar production. It is not one of my favorites.
disdressed12
in my mind this is a fluffy,light movie,but very entertaining and fun to watch.Basically,John Wayne is stranger in town who agrees to help the men get a new road built.the workers have been continually threatened and harassed or worse,by a gang of outlaws who don't want the road built.there is no law to speak of in the town,so the gang has pretty much done whatever they please.until now,that is.this is a pretty standard western movie,which follows the general formula of westerns at that time.however,i think it it is well acted,exciting and fast paced.it's a pretty short movie(less than 90 minutes)but there'a lot jammed into the short running time.if you're in the mood to simply be entertained,you might like this movie.it's not an epic,like many of John Wayne's movies,but so what.i think "rainbow Valley" is a strong 8/10
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