Product: Blue Steel
Rating: 5.0
An excellent early western with John Wayne
George Hayes didn't always look like "Gabby" in the early Lone Star Pictures productions from the early 1930s, but he certainly does here in Blue Steel in the role of the mustachioed, chawin' and spittin' sheriff Jake. He is hot on the trail of the Polka Dot Bandit, whose thieving ways are becoming legendary in the area. He thinks he knows who the bad guy is, having seen John Carruthers (John Wayne) messing around behind a recently emptied safe. The two men unexpectedly become partners of a sort, though, when a young lady rides up with a gang of outlaws on her tail. Both men quickly become involved with the travails of the local town, the population of which is without ammunition and almost out of food because of these same outlaws pouncing on every stagecoach that tries to approach with the necessary provisions. One of the town's most upright citizens takes the girl in and generously offers a decent sum of money to those townspeople who choose to leave rather than hang around to starve to death. There's gold in them there ranches, just underneath the topsoil, and a man who owned all of the land could do quite well for himself. Gabby Hayes and John Wayne are a dynamic duo, and the "surprises" each man holds back from the other one until the end make for some very interesting and somewhat humorous moments. Blue Steel may be your standard early western from 1934, but it is a most enjoyable movie to watch.