Wyoming Outlaw – Roughnecks, rifles, and a rebel heart

This is one of those B-westerns I stumbled onto a rainy Tuesday at Filmhuset back in the late 80s… I’d flunked a film history exam and needed cheering up. And boom, there was John Wayne – slick as ever – blasting through black-and-white frontier justice like he owned the prairie. I still remember the lukewarm kaffe and soggy ostmacka I had in the lobby. Weird how you remember the food and not what you studied.

So yeah, Wyoming Outlaw (1939), directed by George Sherman – the guy made westerns like other people baked bullar – is part of the “Three Mesquiteers” series. Cheap and cheerful stuff, factory-style from Republic Pictures. But this one’s got a bit more bite, thanks to Don “Red” Barry as Will Parker, a local farm boy pushed into crime by corrupt politicians. Kinda like Robin Hood on horseback, but skinnier and with less charisma.

You got John Wayne (playing Stony Brooke, love that silly name) doing his pre-Stagecoach shtick. He’s not the main guy here, which is funky to see, but still steals half the scenes just by looking stern. The plot? Simple. Guy gets screwed by the system. Picks up a gun. Things get messy. It’s messy in that fun, dusty way though. Bit preachy but not unbearable.

Some scenes feel clunky. The action’s kinda “bråk på Liseberg” rather than Sergio Leone. Music is full-on fiddle and banjo mood – charming but also almost like tvingad dansbandsmusik på midsommar. You know?

But here’s the thing – you don’t watch these films to be wowed. You watch ’em like you’d watch an old VHS with your uncle who talks through the whole movie. It’s cozy. It’s part cowboy fantasy, part rural realpolitik.

And damn, that horseback standoff in the final scene still gets me. Goosebumps, kind of. Or maybe indigestion. Not sure.

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