Western Wednesday: The Man from Utah (1934)

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for a Western!
 This week's film is 1934's The Man From Utah.

Now, I've included John Wayne films in some of my previous 'Western Wednesday' post, such as The Big Trail and True Grit. So, let's take a look at another movie featuring the man synonymous with the genre. 

In this one John Wayne plays John Weston and he is, as the title would suggest, a man from Utah. He rides into a small town one day seeking work. However, shortly after he arrives three men rob the local bank and, being the man of action he is, John guns down two of the robbers and shoots the gun out of the hand of the third. After the marshal sees how easily this man stopped the three criminals, he decides he can use the sharp-shooting Weston to help him in his investigation to figure out who's behind a crooked rodeo. Weston enters the rodeo, he does really well, and from there everything you'd expect to happen pretty much does. The Duke infiltrates the rodeo gang, figures out how they operate, and, of course, saves the day.

So, is this one of the great John Wayne films? No. The characters are one-dimensional and the plot is pretty basic. Overall, it's watchable, and it's only about a hour long (unfortunately a significant portion of that is rodeo stock footage). If you're a big John Wayne fan then I recommend it, but otherwise it's not a must-see.

I give it a 2 out of 5.

 Have a suggestion for a 'Western Wednesday' review? 

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