Grade: D+
Synopsis: After a young Texan (John Wayne) and an old rancher (George Hayes) strike gold, they find themselves wanted for murder thanks to a crooked assayer.
The Lucky Texan is a sub-par Lone Star entry, notable chiefly for George Hayes’ comedic turn in drag towards the film’s end.
The script by director Robert N. Bradbury is slow and talky. There’s a lot of setup getting John Wayne and George Hayes’ characters together and into the mining business, including some flat attempts at comedy and a laughable Lassie sequence.
The supporting cast is also uneven. While Yakima Canutt is fine as Lloyd Whitlock’s character’s villainous muscle, Barbra Sheldon is wooden and ill cast as Wayne’s would-be love interest. Like most of Wayne’s Lone Star leading ladies, she has zero charisma and seems out of place in the old-west setting.
Despite all of this, the last ten minutes are great, featuring a genuinely funny sequence involving Gabby Hayes’s character disguising himself in drag, and a well-done chase scene involving a motorized rail car.
Bottom Line: Fans of the Lone Star Production would do well to give The Lucky Texan a look, if only for the novelty of seeing Gabby Hayes in drag, just fast forward through the first 45 minutes.
