Stellead
Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Roy Hart
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Edgar Allan Pooh
. . . he wins a major rodeo decathlon during THE MAN FROM UTAH (setting several world records for individual events in the process). This will put any Human Citizen of the 21st Century in mind of our most famous living Olympic Gold Medalist Decathlon Champ, the athlete-formerly-known-as Bruce Jenner. Life Cereal's ad campaign in the 1900s used to encourage kids to "Be like Mike," but Bruce grew up with the heartbreak of failing to "Be like John Wayne," no matter how hard he tried. Maybe that's because even John Wayne washed out at "Being like John." Take the first scene of THE MAN FROM UTAH. Wayne finds himself staring into an empty purse, the Universally understood symbol for a Lady losing her grip on Womanhood. If there's anyone who attacked gay people more viciously than Today's gay nightclub frequenter, Orlando Omar, it was John Wayne. Famed 20th Century film director Vincent Sherman has testified on camera that he used to watch John Wayne and his henchman Ward Bond riding motorcycles up and down the street in Real Life, clubbing the Gay and Transgender Population, as if they were baby seals at the mercy of Canadians. (Such behavior in the 1950s was no riskier for the Perpetrator than a slave overseer flogging Southern Blacks in the 1850s.) No doubt both Wayne and Bond were frustrated women trying to escape their Bruce Jenner-style bodies before Today's surgical options had been perfected, but that's not enough to make me excuse their dastardly deeds.
BatStarIndyFreak
I had watched this movie before when it came out on TV, and was, like most, perturbed at the effort to make the Duke a traveling troubadour. The story is western B-movie grade, and would probably not have seen the light of day, beyond its original release if it did not have John Wayne (or someone else who would eventually reach superstardom). It has an interesting enough plot, with some rodeo stunts that are, of themselves, impressive. Yes, the acting is stilted, but you expect that with these fly-by-night productions. I read the gripes about 'the original music' not used in this film, and replaced by modern day synthesizer music. I myself prefer the added music for the simple reason that (other than the opening song supposed sung by Wayne), there is no original music. And it was actually my first experience watching this film that I came to realize that not only does music in a movie amp up the drama, but it also help you feel the pacing of the storyline. Perhaps the movie's events should be dramatic of themselves, but again, this is a B-movie we're watching. Overall, it's worth wading through all the cheesiness just to feel the full scope of John Wayne's career.
bkoganbing
In this low budget oater from Monogram we've got John Wayne helping U.S. Marshal Gabby Hayes bring down some bank robbers in the very act of same. Gabby liked the way young man handled himself so he takes him on as an undercover agent to smash a rodeo racket.You heard it folks, a rodeo racket. This bunch comes to a given town sets up a rodeo, take in bets from the locals on their best cowboys and the gang's cowboys always seem to win by hook or deadly crook. They also do a few other things on the side like bank robbery, rustling, your usual western crimes. They've also got a unique way of dispatching competition into eternity which I won't get into. The Duke was lucky to discover what they had in store for him. I will say that modern forensic science would have had the mystery solved.This was one of those films where they tried to make John Wayne a singing cowboy. The film begins with him on a white horse, strumming a guitar, singing some forgettable ballad. Some Nelson Eddy wannabe's voice is dubbed in and you know it isn't Wayne. It's so bad that even audiences in 1934 would have known this wasn't John Wayne, And this was before he became JOHN WAYNE.
classicsoncall
"The Man From Utah" opens with a singing cowboy strumming a guitar on horseback. This is how we're introduced to John Weston (John Wayne), heading into town and looking for work. When he helps Marshal Higgins (George pre-Gabby Hayes) foil a bank robbery with his fancy shooting, the marshal offers him an undercover job as a deputy to investigate the Dalton Valley Rodeo. Apparently, the annual winners of the big prize money in the rodeo are a tight knit band of bad boys in the employ of Spike Barton (Ed Peil), who also happens to head up the rodeo committee. Serious challengers to the supremacy of Barton's top henchman Cheyenne Kent (Yakima Canutt) wind up severely ill or dead. Even back in these 1930's Lone Star Westerns John Wayne had a charismatic presence that hinted at future star quality. If for nothing else, seeing Wayne so young in these films is a real treat. The movie itself clips along at a quick fifty three minute pace, much of it taken up by stock rodeo footage of roping, bulldogging and Indian parade and dance. In the deciding rodeo event, Weston avoids disaster by discovering a poisoned needle inserted into the saddle of "Dynamite", a formerly unridden bronco on which he must outlast Cheyenne. The ending is no surprise, as Barton's bad boys forsake winning the rodeo events and go for the whole thirty thousand dollar pot of prize money deposited in the local bank. But the marshal and Weston are there to foil their plans and save the day for the Dalton Valley Rodeo. And as we've seen before in films like "Neath the Arizona Skies" and "Randy Rides Alone", Wayne's character closes out the film in a clinch with a pretty young lady, this time the judge's daughter Marjorie Carter (Polly Ann Young), who pined for him throughout the film.
