Born to the West

Born to the West (reissue title Hell Town) is a 1937 American Western film starring John Wayne, Marsha Hunt, and John Mack Brown. Filmed in black and white and based upon a Zane Grey novel, the movie incorporates footage from an earlier and higher budgeted silent version, a common practice of the era. The picture features fast chases, gun-fights, unusual poker gambling, and peppy light dialogue for the love interest. Plot Dare Rudd and Dinkey Hooley, roaming cowhands, drift into Montana, where they meet Dare's cousin, Tom Fillmore, cattleman and banker. Tom offers them jobs but they pass, until Dare sees Tom's sweetheart, Judy Worstall and decides to take the job. He is put in charge of a cattle drive, replacing ranch-foreman Lynn Hardy, who is in cahoots with Bart Hammond, rustler. Dare delivers the cattle to the railhead and is about to return when he is persuaded into a poker game by Buck Brady, a crooked gambler. Dare is almost cleaned out when Tom appears and takes a hand and discovers the dealer is switching decks. On the vast mountainous Montana vista, to the soft strains of a "ride 'em" chorus, horned cattle are quietly herded until raiders divert them. Hearing shots, Dare (Wayne) "This is no time to think" in a tall white hat, and hungry dark-mustached wiry side-kick lightning-rod salesman Dink Hooley (an uncredited Syd Saylor) mis-call "the winning side", add their wild mustangs to confusion and dusty stampede at jerky triple time of original silent film. Rough shrubby terrain provides a dangerous battleground. Seemingly safe across border in next state, Wayne's cousin Tom Fillmore (John Mack Brown), local "big man," Bank President, and "shining" good sheep of the family surprises the pair, and offers them a job. "People around here spend too much time thinking"; John just fist fights and proposes while Tom's girl Judy (Marsha Hunt) bandages his eye, "I guess I'll just marry you" he says. She declines to answer, but says, "You've been hurt enough for one day." When a rattler scares her horse, Tom's somersaults and Dare wins the chase.