THE STAR PACKER (1934) ** Early John Wayne Western, but at least it's on this side of the too-much-face-makeup era (that really didn't suit him). In fact it's already appearance number 50 for The Duke (in a mere eight years, they rode their horses harder and faster then), and he's just starting to really spit out his best lines, he's just on the cusp of becoming John Wayne . His arch-villain is a guy called The Shadow, who apparently lives in a fake vault in the back room of the town saloon. No, really, it's hokey but endearing, there's no way a kid of any era could not be drawn into a world like this. I do just want to say, though: yes, it's funny listening to Indians speak English with irregular and creative grammar, but just once I'd like to see a film with cowboys trying to speak Indian (with American subtitles, so we can see how dumb they sound). Speaking of sound, there is none as they build to the climactic violent scenes...no acoustic guitar, no Mexican horns, no ululating...it's kind of nice.
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