The Star Packer

Plot synopsis:
John Travers is a U.S. marshal who, along with his Indian assistant Yak, are looking for some wanted criminals somewhere in the untamed West. Posing as the Lone Rider, Travers appears to rob a stagecoach; however, he is only setting up a sting where he can prevent the actual robbery and capture a pair of highwaymen. In the process he also rescues the attractive young female occupant of the stagecoach, who happens to be the niece of a town leader. When Travers arrives in town with the injured stage driver and the young lady, the citizens come out to see what is happening. In the group is Al Davis, who has that same day just been named the new sheriff of the town. While the townfolks are talking to Travers a sniper kills Davis on the spot. Travers does not reveal he is a U.S. marshal, however he volunteers to be their sheriff.Travers rides out to recover the money he "stole" earlier. Meanwhile an unseen bad guy known as the Shadow gives his henchmen orders from a secret room, communicating through a hole in the wall disguised as a safe. They are assigned to do away with Sheriff Travers. Between the hero and his sidekick Yak, they keep one step ahead of the bad guys, repeatedly foiling their attempts to murder our lawman. Travers and Yak eventually locate a mountain hideout that contains numerous hardened fugitives whose activities are orchestrated by the Shadow.The Shadow is Matt Matlock, a town leader who all believe to be a decent person. In fact he is not even really Matt Matlock, but a criminal who sometime recently killed a rancher named Matt Matlock and assumed his identity. Matlock's niece Anita, the girl rescued earlier in the stagecoach, whose father was Matt Matlock's brother and co-owner of the ranch, came to town to see the ranch she inherited a 50% share in after her father's death. Unbeknownst to her, her father was also killed by the Shadow. Having never seen her uncle she does not know the man she is staying with is a criminal. Shadow/Matlock tries to carry out the charade of kindly uncle, but at the same time arranges some disturbances at night, such as a fiendish face at the window and a man in a bear costume, to scare away Miss Matlock. She doesn't scare easily, though, and takes a potshot at the prowlers, quickly ending their pranks.Travers and Yak discover the secret room from which the Shadow conducts his business in town, as well as a hollowed out tree stump that served as the hideout for the earlier sniper. This greatly helps them bring their investigation to the point where Travers reveals who he really is, and swears in a bunch of local ranchers as deputies to form a legal posse and go after the Shadow gang. Meanwhile Matlock's old cook tells Anita that the man she thinks is her uncle is a murderous imposter. She rides off toward town to break the news, but is captured by the gang on the way. The gang has acquired a machine gun, and they all head out to do away with Travers and his do-gooders. A prolonged chase and shootout ensues. The surviving members of the Shadow gang are all justly captured.Travers and Anita have been making eyes at each other throughout the story, and the epilogue reveals that they fall in love, get married and live on the ranch with Yak, and raise a family.

Tags: murder

Review:
Definitely the best of John Wayne's million early films, although the acting and production values were of the usual B Western standard the plot was probably more cohesive than usual and more watchable.
The Lone Star Saloon in Lone Star Town also had a good part in this one.It's pretty obvious who the baddie will turn out to be (yet again!) - you can almost hear the boos from the kids in the audience from the mid-'30's when he makes his appearance, again as a beardless two-faced sidewinder.
Yakima Canutt is playing a Tonto character in here, Wayne is as dashing as always, the chases and ambushes are everything to be desired, in fact especially hair-raising.
If you forced yourself to watch Star Packer in its entirety and found it dreadful you'll never get that hour back, but my friendly observation is you certainly won't like any of Wayne's other films for Lone Star..
The reason I like these matinée westerns from this era is probably because they make me feel like a kid again but I have other reasons that I think are pretty good.
Now John Wayne made a lot of westerns in this era and Yakima Canutt was in every one of them as Wayne's stunt double.
What makes this movie special is that, as far as I know, this is the only time he ever appears as a good guy.He has a very entertaining part as John Wayne's Tonto-like side kick.
In fact, in my opinion, it's one of the best of John Wayne's early "B" westerns.
There are horse falls, saving the runaway stage, a wagon going over that ever present cliff and a bang up fight scene between Wayne's character and one of the bad guys.Canutt also has a part in the picture and is a hoot as Wayne's faithful Indian companion "Yak".
a clean shaven George (pre-Gabby) Hayes appears as the chief villain.Another oddity for "B" westerns of this time, is that the hero ends up married to the heroine and has a son at the end of the film (no kissing though)..
Yeah, I know it's gotta have a girl, but at least Wayne doesn't have to kiss her-- what mush!Great Lone Star action fare.
Yakima Canutt has his idea of some "skookum fun" as a good guy for a change from his normal villainous role, and Gabby Hayes plays against type as the bad guy.
Canutt's part would seem to be an early model for another famous Indian buddy of a lawman, namely that of "Tonto." (Note also the Duke's horse could pass for "Silver.") As a resident from the same part of Yakima Canutt's home state, I was pleasantly surprised when Wayne as Travers identifies one of the Shadow's gang as a "lifer from Walla Walla" which is the site of Washington's maximum security state prison.
This is a real B movie, right down to the historical imprecision of a location featuring both stage coaches and telephones, its clichéd dialogue, a totally predictable plot straight out of the comics and enough protracted chases and gunfights to fill in the gaps left by a very thin script.The Duke and his entourage provide plenty of ironic laughs but, if you want to take the movie at face value, it is quite enjoyable.
The good guys win, the bad guys get their comeuppance, the Duke gets his gal and Yakima Canutt shows his tricks all in a setting that engrossed generations of schoolboys over most of the 20th century.The Star Packers should also be of interest to students of cinema as its structure encapsulates the early movement of silent film into the talkies..
Of course this movie is in black and white, since color was still on the horizon, so some of the video does leave a bit to be desired but I did and still do enjoy the good guy versus bad guy movies where most things are pretty clear.
John Wayne plays a marshal out to break up a gang of bandits led by the not-that-mysterious Shadow (Gabby Hayes).
Stunt man extraordinaire Yakima Canutt does the stunts and plays the role of Wayne's Indian friend.
Requiem For Poor Joe. Even for John Wayne's legendarily weak Lone Star westerns, this one's a real turkey.Wayne plays John Travers, who takes over as sheriff of the terrorized town of Little Rock after a horse-stealing, stage-robbing mastermind known as "The Shadow" kills the last "star-packing" lawman.
With the help of his Indian partner Yak (Yakima Canutt), Travers investigates how the Shadow operates and leads a gang of locals against him.Dan Phillips makes a great point in his review here.
Early in the movie, we see Yak tell Travers "two men going to hold up stage...
Travers only rides in after the hold-up men ride off, to save the driver and the pretty girl Anita (Verna Hillie) on the stage.What the heck!We are told early on by rancher Matt Matlock (George – not yet Gabby – Hayes), that the Shadow "has absolutely no regard for human life." That apparently holds true for Travers as well, who shares a laugh with Anita after the shooting death of poor Joe. Sure, he foiled the robbery by stealing the money, but why couldn't he and Yak have hung around and stopped the stage robbery by riding up on the bad guys from behind?You aren't supposed to ask questions with these sorts of films, made for young boys who craved adventure.
Later in the film, Travers leads a captured baddie to a wall safe from which the Shadow gives his orders.
Why not grab the Shadow then and there?The only explanation we get is given at the start of the movie, by Yak: "More trouble, more fun." If Travers stopped the Shadow then, he wouldn't have had another chance to save Anita from a runaway wagon."The Star Packer" does have a lot of stunts.
He knew he had a bore of a story on his hands, and must have counted on the stunts to liven things up.The usual Lone Star gang is in evidence here, including Canutt and Hayes playing on opposite sides of the law, though not the same sides their characters were usually on.
Earl Dwire, a personal favorite, is a bad guy here, like he was half the time in these movies, as a villain who sneers "We'll be outta here by noon tomorrow" when Travers puts him behind bars.Wayne is more wooden here than normal, and kind of dull, unusually so for him.
JOHN WAYNE is slim and lithe as a cowboy who anoints himself sheriff after the bad guys rub too many of the town's citizens out.
From then on it's like watching a Hopalong Cassidy movie except this one is from Lone Star and is obviously a poverty row project with a few interesting moments for anyone who stays with it for 53 minutes.The tree stump idea puzzled me, as did the wall vault which served as the device behind which The Shadow gave orders--and the whole plot is so rushed that there's little time to digest any of the backstory that leads up to the main storyline.
A pretty girl is the romantic interest for Wayne but has little to do and GEORGE HAYES is beardless for this one before he grew his trademark stubble.Actually, the slender story seems like something borrowed from a Zane Grey western--the one where the girl is part owner of a ranch, the bad guy is actually someone she knows but never suspects, and a cowboy with strong capabilities comes along and rescues her when she's in danger.The covered wagon going over the cliff into water is a neat sight toward the end and some of the stunt work involving riders and horses is on the mark.
YAKIMA CANUTT is fun to watch as Wayne's Indian sidekick, a sort of Tonto to Wayne who rides a white horse.Passes the time quickly, but is clearly John Wayne as an apprentice actor..
(But I did see movie made in 1952 where a trip wire was used.) Other than this criticism, it was pretty standard early John Wayne stuff..
Besides the pleasure of seeing a young John Wayne after "The Big Trail" and before his breakout role in "Stagecoach", you have the talents of Yakima Canutt as Wayne's native American assistant, one of the best stunt men in the business who lived to the ripe old age of 90.
Oh, and he wasn't actually native American, as many articles falsely say.Wayne plays a federal man meant to clean out a gang led by "The Shadow" that has been brazenly carrying out all kinds of crimes in and around a town and killing all of the sheriffs.
This gives the Shadow time to shoot you.My title comes from the fact that the final chase on horseback - there always is one in these old westerns - has Duke and the men of the town all wearing white head scarves to differentiate themselves from the Shadow's gang that is coming to attack the town.
It really is a humorous scene.Recommended for an early John Wayne, a rather clever plot with some unusual twists and turns, and the great Yakima Canutt, stuntman and second unit director extraordinaire..
I really liked this early John Wayne picture,, he teams up with Gabby Hayes, and Yakuma Cannut.
going against type,, George "Gabby" Hayes plays the bad guy in this film,,, the local sheriff meats his demise,, and his friend, played by the Duke, takes on the role of the local sheriff, he teams up with his Indian partner,, played by Cannut .
the find a secret command center underneath a fake covering of some sorts in the street behind a wall or something like that,, and it's the command center for all of the Shadow's activity,, love the scene where the Duke is chasing the bad guy on horseback while the villain is going downstream in a canoe,, very decent early John Wayne film..
John Wayne is U.S. Marshal John Travers, investigating a crooked hoodlum known only as "The Shadow", responsible for stealing cattle, stage holdups and the like, and giving orders from behind the door of a phony wall safe.
well, "Yak".Early on, we find out that Cattlemens Union head Matt Matlock (George pre-Gabby Hayes) is really The Shadow; the dead giveaway is when he offers to buy out his (supposed) niece Anita's half of the Matlock Ranch, since "this is no place for a girl".
As Anita, Verna Hillie doesn't have much to do in the film, although in a comic moment, she gets to use a six shooter to blast the butt of one of the villains in a night time scare raid.There are a few curiosities in the film - for one, Wayne's character alternately rides a white horse and a dark horse in the first half of the film.
And finally, the movie doesn't truly live up to it's name, as Sheriff Travers never wears a badge throughout the film, that is, a star packer without a star.The horse chases, the runaway stage scenes, the stagecoach off the cliff (another curiosity, the horses conveniently get loose from the stage) are all pretty standard stuff.
I watched the beginning twice, could NOT make sense of it, and it bothered me for the whole movie.So, work this out with me: Wayne (the GOOD guy) jumps on the stagecoach, disarms the drivers (!), steals the money (?!), and takes off.Disarmed, one driver is then killed and the other wounded by the bad guys.
Thanks to Wayne, who disarmed them, and then watched it happen.Then Wayne drops the money in the dirt, rescues the girl, rides into town, chuckles it up with Yak (too bad about the dead guy, I guess)...and then later says he "found" the money back at the scene.
Sad to say this is one of the sillier of John Wayne's series of poverty row westerns for Lone Star Productions.
He had not yet found his niche as the lovable oldtimer sidekick of various movie cowboy heroes like the Duke.Later on he does lead his men quite openly in the climax so I'm not sure what the point of the original gimmick with the wall safe was.
I don't think those that wrote this one knew either.Wayne gets Yakima Canutt as an Indian sidekick here and the relationship is just about the same as an unmasked Lone Ranger and Tonto.It's all pretty silly if you ask me..
THE STAR PACKER is one of about 152,000,000 westerns that John Wayne acted in during the 1930s.
Some of these Wayne features are pretty good, while others, like this one, are watchable but also rather silly and inconsequential.
I enjoyed this film and most of the others, but it's probably because I cut Bs a lot of slack.Wayne stars as John Travers--a US Marshall investigating the actions of a local gang out to chase locals out and steal from the stage.
Wayne's sidekick is Yak--played by stuntman and real life friend of Wayne, Yakima Canutt.The bad guy is an unknown figure referred to as "The Shadow" and he dispenses his instructions through a black screen that hides his face!
The problem is, if you listen to his voice AND pay any attention at all, it becomes obvious early in the film that this "Shadow" is George Hayes.
Now speaking of Hayes, this is the same guy who later in films was known as Gabby Hayes, but here and in several other of Wayne's early films, he looks and acts NOTHING like Gabby.
Canutt was often John Wayne's double in films--and this went on for decades.
The problem with some of the stunts, however, is that it appears that the film makers actually killed a few horses to get those great "stumbling horses" bits seen later in the film.
THE STAR PACKER was made well before the disclaimer and I can't see how the horses did these "tricks" without being killed.Overall, this is at best a time-passer due to a poor plot, occasionally poor acting and an unbelievable cruel attitude towards the horses.
COMMENT: One of the best of Monogram's Lone Star series - not only action-packed and fast-moving, but utilizing an interesting cast in a fairly involving script, all filmed on a fair-sized budget.
John Wayne of course is the man who packs the star.
Nonetheless the actor concerned puts up a good show.It's pleasing to report that not only is Wayne in top form, but that his mate Yakima Canutt has a major role in this one as the Duke's constant sidekick - an Indian named Yak. In fact Canutt is one of the chief joys of the movie, performing an astonishing number of increasingly spectacular stunts, including several leaps from horse to horse, a wagon plunge, and five or six Flying W's including one which catapults two riders off the one horse.
I have seen many of Wayne's early Lone Star and Republic westerns, and this one is easily the worst.The bad guy is known as The Shadow - for crying out loud!
This one could have used a sprawling 90 minutes to: flesh out all the evil henchmen introduced by name, including 'Chuckawalla' Red, 'Slippery' Williams and 'Spike' Morgan; show the back story of how George Hayes took over the ranch; give the faithful Indian companion,"Yak," (played by Yakima Canutt himself!) more to do; and give development to the romance between the interesting blonde, Verna Hillie (showcased in a subtle bed sequence), and John Wayne --the last scene shows their domesticity with their now five year old son!
Big fun!" But mostly John Wayne just tells him to "Stay here and keep an eye out..." You can see even more of the versatility of the pre- 'Gabby' George Hayes as a REALLY despicable villain in the clunky serial 'The Lost City.' Finally, even though the movie moves along interestingly enough, suddenly, everyone in town is going to chase after the villain and his gang.
THE STAR PACKER is a simple and fast-paced B-movie western for rising star John Wayne.
The pairing of John Wayne and Yakima Canutt (as his "faithful Indian Companion:, 'Yak')bears a strong and seemingly more than coincidental resemblance to the Lone Ranger & Tonto.AS WITH THE rest of these Lone Star Westerns, we find this to be great escapism, highly entertaining and worthwhile.
When the sheriff is shot dead by a gang of bandits he had sworn to eliminate, John Wayne pins the badge on and picks up where his predecessor left off.Though the Star Packer isn't as well paced as some of the other films Wayne made as a contract star for Lone Star/Monogram Pictures, there's a pretty thrilling chase climax worth waiting around for, featuring some good scenery and stunt work.There's also an interesting role reversal with George "Gabby" Hayes playing the president of the cattlemen's association, living a double life as "The Shadow", leader of the outlaw gang and the usually villainous Yakima Canutt playing the role of Wayne's Tonto-esquire Indian sidekick..
At the end of STAR PACKER, John Wayne is shown raising his kid as a fearless future crime fighter to follow in his own footsteps.
Since Wayne's sidekick here is a Native American, this flick's message is "STAR PACKERS are NOT Racist Crackers--do NOT shoot them with Guns OR Cell Phones!".
Suspecting that a stagecoach carrying money is about to be ambushed by bandits "John Travers" (John Wayne) decides to rob the stage first and then quickly rides off.
Once they ride into the nearby town it's learned that 2 sheriffs have been killed by these bandits who are led by a man known only as "The Shadow".
At any rate, rather than detail any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that although it's quite short (only 53 minutes) it managed to condense enough of the story to turn out an okay little western all the same.