John Wayne is without a doubt one of the most popular and loved actors of all time. His career stretched over forty years, and within that time he starred in films such as "Angel and the Badman", "The Green Berets", "Sands of Iwo Jima", "Rio Bravo", "North to Alaska", and "The Undefeated".<br /><br />The film's listed above are hailed as some of his best, unlike this 1934 effort "Randy Rides Alone", which has been pretty much forgotten about as time's gone on, which is unsurprising, as it's nothing memorable apart from its very short running time of just 53 minutes.<br /><br />A young John Wayne plays Randy Bowers, who for reasons never really explained, arrives at a saloon in the middle of nowhere and finds that everyone inside has been killed. While looking around, a posse arrives and finds Randy there and they arrest him, accusing him of being a gang member and demand to know where the rest of his gang is. He is put in jail accused of the murders. Sally Rogers, whose uncle owned the saloon and was murdered, arrives at the jail to see Randy in order to clarify that he was one of the gang members ( She was hiding in a secret room when the shooting took place ). Sally doesn't believe that Randy is a killer, and doesn't recognise him, so while the sheriff is out, she slips him the keys and Randy escapes. While running away from the sheriff and his posse, Randy conveniently stumbles into the gang's hideout in a cave who were responsible for the murders. Randy sets out to clear his name, and also to bring the gang to justice.<br /><br />"Randy Rides Alone" can be a fun film to watch, especially if you're a John Wayne fan. But at the same time it has far too many flaws that are impossible to ignore. The film is also extremely dated, as you would expect; we have the terrible camera shooting which makes everyone look like they are moving in super-fast motion, and the dialogue is terrible. The acting isn't great either, and Wayne's character is very wooden and he, along with the rest of the cast, look like wooden puppets who are being conducted by someone ( In this case it's by director Harry Fraser ). Harry Fraser is at the helm, and does a good enough job but the story is paper-thin. One can't help but feel that about ten minutes is missing from the start of the film as Randy just arrives out of nowhere at the saloon and is looking to meet someone. An explanation on why Randy was there is giving later on, which turns out to be something like he is a P.I who was sent to investigate the claims that someone is trying to take over the town. To be honest I didn't really pick it up, most of the time I was hoping for the movie to end.<br /><br />But that being said, I didn't find this film to be completely terrible. I enjoyed some of it and found it to be quite fun at times. But it really isn't a great film, and isn't really worth watching or tracking down.<br /><br />Overall, "Randy Rides Alone" is incredibly dated and is a tiresome Western with very few redeeming qualities. Can be fun but overall it isn't a great movie and is certainly one of Wayne's weaker outings.