I. “…with Wayne serving as a wrangler, stunt double and bit player.” Page 1982
II. “According to Wayne’s recollection, … “I was hired on as an assistant for a George O’Brien western (I was actually hired as an actor but it was understood I would act as an Assistant – a scrounger, today they would call them a location manager). One of my jobs was to get 400 head of cattle into Blue Canyon which was 150 miles from any paved road. A preacher who had a little church on the Hopi reservation agreed to help me gather them. In gathering those cattle, we horse backed into Monument Valley. … It was during the making of this picture, in which I was assistant as well as riding in the posse that I personally rode through Monument Valley.” (The film was Lone Star Ranger, Fox 1930.) Volume VI, No 1, June 1989.9 This is noteworthy not simply because it definitively places Wayne in this film, but it also dispels two myths that have been perpetuated by many over the years. The first is that Wayne was never a cowboy. That he drove 400 head of cattle over 100 miles, while on horseback, proves that at least once in his life he was a cowboy. The second is that John Ford “discovered” Monument Valley, since Wayne was there almost ten full years before Ford filmed Stagecoach there in 1939.
III. This film has been viewed by the authors, however the quality is so poor that we were only able to say that this is could be John Wayne seen in this film. We were able to establish that John Wayne’s name does not appear in the opening or closing credits of this film.
With thanks to Elly
John Wayne Before Stagecoach