Sagebrush Trail

• (UK title An Innocent Man)
• Directed by Armand Schaefer
• December 15, 1933

Sentenced to hang for a murder he did not commit, a man escapes determined to find the real killer.

Wow! This is 90 years old this year. Did not realize that when I popped it in. Anywho…

Sagebrush Trail is one of numerous Poverty Row pictures that John Wayne did before anybody cared about who he was. He certainly had a following which meant a lot more back then than it does now, but he hadn’t done Stagecoach with John Ford at the time of this which was what turned him into a genuine Hollywood star.

Here Wayne plays the wrongfully convicted and creatively named John Brant who travels out West to find the one person that can clear his name-the real killer. How does he know the identity? What is his evidence? Don’t know.

I’m not exactly sure what Brant’s plan is when he finds the man but the man he does indeed find and they become friends and by the end Brant is cleared and free to go on his way no further questions asked of a man’s dying confession.

What we get isn’t bad, but it needed another 20 or 30 minutes that would have vastly improved things which would mostly be the set up to the situation that dominated what we actually got. This felt more like the last half of a movie than it did a full film. That is not because this is only about 54 minutes. It is because we do not get the context of the issue. Why was Brant alone with a married woman? There is an obvious potential reason, but this was 1933 and sullying the honor of the hero by showing that may have been perceived as a bad idea.

The total presentation feels like something from television decades later in the 60s or 70s. That is a bit of a television sweet spot for me. The production values and Brant using a reed to breathe while underwater seem like prime examples of the look and feel of television of that era. The only thing missing is quicksand.

Brant just stumbles into the answer to this problem while trying to evade capture by bumping into the husband (Lane Chandler) of the dead woman. Can’t tell if he knows who Brant is-EVER. Sometimes it sounds like he does and others not so much.

The direction is adequate, but the camera work leaves plenty to be desired. Then again, this was the cheapest of the cheap movies back in the day so you’re not gonna get anything too dynamic by the standards of the day or even today’s standards. Chandler is an adequate performer and John Wayne doesn’t do too bad but lacks many of the hallmarks for which is best known. His dialogue is much quicker than what he is famous for and he doesn’t take his time moving around a scene. It makes his character amiable rather than tough.

It was entertaining but I did find the resolution a little too neat. Then again everything was pretty neat here. Brant found the exact group of people he needed to find with no effort and his plot to disrupt this gang he fell in with proceeded easily with suspicion easily dissuaded. And the local sheriff that did squat was all cool with the word of a wanted outlaw and his equally wanted friend. No wonder there were issues in his town. He was lazy and easily swayed.

Sagebrush Trail for what it is isn’t bad. If you’re a John Wayne fan it’s a nice little thing to take in but if you are a general Western fan, it might be a bit of a hard sell. It’s better than most Poverty Row films but not by too much. It’s a nice diversion but nothing great.