Winds of the Wasteland
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Mack V. Wright
John Wayne
Phyllis Fraser
Lew Kelly
Douglas Cosgrove
Lane Chandler
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
With the coming of the telegraph, the Pony Express is declared obsolete following an ambush by Indians, and its drivers are forced to find new jobs. After Johnny Blair makes his last Pony Express ride, he heads for Buchanan City with his friend, Larry Adams, hoping to start a stagecoach line. "Cal" Drake, who runs a stageline in Buchanan City, sells Johnny a stagecoach franchise for $3,000 that makes a seventy-mile round trip from Crescent City into Buchanan twice a week. When Johnny and Adams arrive, however, they find Crescent City deserted, except for an old man named "Rocky," who introduces himself as mayor, sheriff and postmaster, and Doc William Forsythe. Rocky warns the pair against Drake, who used to be Doc's partner before he refused to accept Drake's dirty dealing and was forced out. Rocky advises Johnny and Adams to fix up the delapidated Crescent City stagecoach, which is now home to a skunk, and enter a contest for a mail contract that involves a stagecoach race from Buchanan to Sacramento. The coach that arrives first will receive a $25,000 government mail subsidy. When Doc's daughter Barbara, a schoolteacher, arrives from the East expecting to find a big city, Johnny convinces her to stay and help her father, who built the town. Johnny then asks a work crew that is putting up a telegraph to run wires through Crescent City instead of Buchanan. The crew hires fifty men from Buchanan to help them, and the city begins to grow. Blake then offers Johnny a job driving a shipment to Sacramento in Blake's stagecoach with an armed escort of Blake's men, who plan to hold up the coach and steal the gold. Johnny outsmarts them, however, and safely delivers the gold. Meanwhile, Larry is shot near his spine by Drake's henchman, Cherokee, while driving the Crescent City stage, but Doc performs a delicate operation and he survives. Johnny returns and on the eve of the race, Cherokee starts a fire in the stable where Johnny keeps his coach. Johnny saves the building and the horses just in time. When Johnny spies the culprits nearby, he shoots at them, and Blake has him arrested. With five minutes remaining before the race, Johnny is in jail. Rocky starts out without him, and Johnny posts bail and catches up with him. Blake wins the stretch from Buchanan to Crescent, but then Johnny switches the coach horses to his Pony Express horses and, taking over for Rocky, catches up with Blake while Rocky rides in the coach with the skunk. Although Blake dynamites Johnny's path, shoots at him, and lassos one of his horses, Johnny pulls him from his own coach and eventually wins the race. Soon Crescent City has a population of 410. Johnny and Barbara embrace, and Rocky announces that he has made a pet of the skunk.
Director
Mack V. Wright
Cast
John Wayne
Phyllis Fraser
Lew Kelly
Douglas Cosgrove
Lane Chandler
Sam Flint
Robert Kortman
Ed Cassidy
Charles Locher
W. M. Mccormick
Chris Franke
Jack Rockwell
Arthur Millett
Tracy Layne
Yakima Canutt
Joe Yrigoyen
Jack Ingram
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The viewed print of this film included a dedication to the "unsung heroes of Old West who gave their lives to bring the thin strands of communication across the trackless wastes of the great American Desert, braving the perils of the trail, that the telegraph wires might follow Pony Express and unite the new cities of the West with the Nation's Capitol." This film was shot on location in the Sierra Mountains and in the Sacramento Valley in CA. The viewed print did not include character names; a modern sources lists them as: Sam Flint (Dr. William Forsythe), Robert Kortman (Cherokee), Charles Locher (Jim), W. M. McCormick (Pete), Chris Franke (Graham), Yakima Canutt (Smoky), Joe Yrigoyen (Pike), and Jack Ingraham (Guard). In addition, modern sources add Bud McClure (Guard) to the cast.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States 1936
Released in United States 1936
