Tonight’s Movie: The Man From Utah (1934) and Lone Pine Locations

One of the more unique tours we’ve enjoyed at the Lone Pine Film Festival was this year’s Owens River Tour, which focused on an area northeast of Lone Pine.

The tour took place off Narrow Gauge Road, not far from the old train depot seen in my post on ARMY GIRL (1938). Several films were shot in the area in addition to ARMY GIRL, including THE ROUND-UP (1920), THE MAN FROM UTAH (1934), BETWEEN MEN (1935), and THE NEVADAN (1950).

None of the films on this particular tour were shown at the festival this year, so I revisited THE NEVADAN immediately ahead of the festival and then watched a couple more short films in Lone Pine on my portable DVD player.

The first film I watched in Lone Pine was THE MAN FROM UTAH, an enjoyable early John Wayne “B” Western. Unfortunately it’s one of a few Wayne ‘30s Westerns which is missing its original music track and had a digital score inserted a number of years ago, but other than that oddity, the print I saw was reasonably good.

As in many of his ‘30s Westerns, Wayne plays a character named John, in this case John Weston. He signs on as deputy to Marshal George Higgins (George “Gabby” Hayes, in a serious role) and is given a specific task, to go undercover and infiltrate a crooked rodeo gang. The gang not only plan to fleece an entire town, they’re also killers!

John’s job is tough at times, especially when he is forced to ignore pretty Marjorie (Polly Ann Young, sister of Loretta) in order to get to know Dolores (Anita Campillo), who is part of the gang.

It’s a fairly simple tale, running only 55 minutes, but I found it engaging, other than an excessive reliance on rodeo stock footage. Wayne and Young are young and attractive, and the Owens River locations are wonderful.

Polly Ann Young’s family, incidentally, knew Wayne well; he had worked with Loretta Young on THREE GIRLS LOST (1931) and had small roles in a couple of her other early '30s films. More significantly, Wayne married his first wife, Josie, in Loretta’s backyard in 1933, the year before making THE MAN FROM UTAH with Polly Ann. Loretta and Josie were close lifelong friends, and when John and Josie’s first child, Michael, was born a few months after the release of THE MAN FROM UTAH, Loretta was godmother.

THE MAN FROM UTAH was written by Lindsley Parsons and filmed by Archie Stout. The cast also included Edward Peil, George Cleveland, Earl Dwire, and Yakima Canutt, who played baddie Cheyenne Kent in addition to stunt work.

Mexican actress Anita Campillo would sadly die in Mexico in November 1938, age 27 or 28, but I haven’t been able to learn any more about her. She has a handful of other film credits which all appear to have been made in Mexico.

An interesting note is that in some of Wayne’s early Westerns, including this one, he’s presented as a “singing cowboy.” The opening song, “Sing Me a Song of the Wild,” was actually dubbed by Jack Kirk, who plays a henchman.

The song was written by the film’s director, Robert N. Bradbury. It’s kind of fascinating how these low-budget Westerns sometimes cut corners on songwriting and dubbing. In the next year’s WESTWARD HO (1935), Wayne was dubbed by supporting actor Glenn Strange, who co-composed a couple of songs, with Bradbury again writing another.

The locations for THE MAN FROM UTAH included a wooden bridge also seen in a number of other films, including Randolph Scott’s THE NEVADAN; in that film Frank Faylen pops out from under the bridge to rob Scott and Forrest Tucker. Today the ruins of the bridge can still be seen:

Here's how the bridge looks in THE MAN FROM UTAH in a screenshot I captured:

This scene with Wayne from our tour screenshot booklet...

...was filmed in the area right here:

And this shot...

was filmed here:

Several other scenes were filmed in the immediate area. The production company was very efficient shooting many of the film's exteriors in a relatively compact geographical area.

It’s rather interesting to reflect that over the years I’ve been able to visit the final resting places of several people who made this film, including Wayne, Young, Hayes, Stout, and Canutt. (In Canutt’s case there is a memorial plaque in his honor rather than a burial place.) Visiting the burial sites and the film's locations, not to mention meeting members of the Wayne and Young families over the years, certainly gave added context and meaning for me when viewing this short, entertaining Western "B" movie.

THE MAN FROM UTAH is in the public domain and can be found on various DVDs as well as on VHS and streaming. My copy was recorded several years ago from the Encore Westerns Channel.

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