Chirphymium
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
Forumrxes
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
SanEat
A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."
Donald Seymour
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Leofwine_draca
THE DAWN RIDER is another of the many B-movie westerns that John Wayne made throughout the 1930s before he really hit the big time. This one's serviceable enough, not one of the best but quite watchable. The story is okay but the action sequences are lacking at times and it's never quite as exciting as it should be. Wayne's father is bumped off at the outset and he himself is badly wounded, and he ends up falling in love with the nurse tending to him. A love triangle develops and various plot twists ensue until the expected climax. It's not bad, watchable enough for undemanding fans.
kai ringler
not a bad western from the famous Lone Star stable of productions. John Wayne plays a man who rides into town to catch up with his father, but before he get's to do that, he sees his old friend, and they share a few drinks.. they wind up getting into a fight, but it's spilt milk really,, so he goes and sees his father and his father get's shot in town. the son played by the Duke,, get's hurt and seeks medical attention from his friend's girlfriend, unbeknownst to him,, they fall in love,, and his friend one night while he is drunk decides to remove the bullets from his gun,, because he knows that the man that killed his father and his friend are set to have it out in the street High Noon style.. interesting little western from Lone Star a fairly decent watch,, also with Yakima Cannut.
dougdoepke
Catch Nelson McDowell as the lanky black-clad undertaker at movie's start. He's got the only face I've seen that appears to be assembled in sections. The eyes go in one direction, the nose in another, while the mouth bounces around like a Kleenex in a windstorm. He's fascinating. I wish we would see more of him.Other reviewers are right. This is an average Wayne entry in the Lone Star series. Buddies Mason (Wayne) and Ben (Howes) do play off one another well and I like the way they bond after their fist-fight. It's now a friendship based on mutual respect. And when they fall out over the same girl (Burns), we feel the loss. There's also Wayne doing his patented "gunman's walk" before he duels it out with Canutt and Moore.However, there's not much stunt work or hard riding. But the biggest problem is Dennis Moore as the chief baddie. Catch that scene that pairs up Wayne in a 2-foot hat with Moore in a 6-foot hat. Too bad Moore just doesn't measure up. Then too, the locations don't get outside greater LA, so we don't get the usual great Southern Sierra scenery. But never mind, an ex-Front Row Kid like this old geezer still gets a thrill when that great Lone Star logo pops up on the screen. Yes indeed, the Duke rides again!
bkoganbing
If John Wayne didn't say that in The Dawn Rider he should have because the film is a tale of mixing bringing a killer to justice and getting a little payback vengeance in the process.Wayne arrives home just in time to witness his father being killed in an express company holdup. He only knows that the killer wore a polka dot neckerchief and with that clue in mind, he begins the hunt.It leads him to places he doesn't like going especially when it turns out the killer Dennis Moore is the brother of Marion Burns who is nursing the Duke back to health when he gets wounded. Added to that is a nice little romantic triangle going on between Wayne, Burns and Reed Howes who has become Wayne's best friend.Yakima Canutt plays the saloon owner and head of the gang that did the robbery and Yakima worked overtime doing the stuntwork as well. There's pretty good sequence involving a foiled robbery when Wayne takes out a gold shipment. Lots of hard riding and shooting and fighting all in a day's work for Yakima Canutt and his fellow stuntmen.I have a version that is only 54 minutes long and I suspect a lot has been cut from it as I believe originally it ran 68 minutes. I suspect the film would have been better with the director's cut.