John Wayne Westerns

Winds of the Wasteland (1936)

Director: Mack Wright
Actors: John Wayne, Phyllis Fraser, Yakima Canutt, Douglas Cosgrove, Lane Chandler
Runtime: 54 min.

When the arrival of the telegraph puts the Pony Express out of business in 1861, John Blair (John Wayne) and Larry Adams (Lane Chandler) decide to go into business running a stagecoach line. Local fat cat Cal Drake (Douglas Cosgrove) swindles them into buying a stage line that runs to a ghost town. The only way for Blair and Adams to recoup their lost investment is to secure the local government mail contract by winning a stagecoach race.

Trivia: Stuntman Yakima Canutt, who performs the stunts in the climactic ten minute long stagecoach race sequence, also performed the stagecoach chase stunts three years later in the classic John Wayne film, Stagecoach. Filmed in the High Sierras and the Sacramento Valley.