Rainbow Valley (1935)
A drifter takes charge of a stalled road-building project meant to free a small town from a land-grabbing gang's grip, and risks the townspeople turning on him when his real purpose as an undercover lawman comes into question.
Rainbow Valley casts George “Gabby” Hayes as a plain-spoken mailman rather than the grizzled sidekick persona he’d soon patent, a reminder that the Hayes of the earliest Lone Star westerns was still finding the character that would define his career.
Background
Rainbow Valley is a 1935 Monogram western directed by Robert N. Bradbury from a script by Lindsley Parsons, released March 15, 1935, with a running time of 52 minutes. John Wayne plays John Martin, a drifter who takes charge of a stalled road-building project meant to free the town of Rainbow Valley from the grip of a land-grabbing gang led by a wealthy rancher named Rogers. The townspeople need the road finished and have petitioned the governor for help, but Martin’s real purpose as an undercover lawman puts him at risk of the town turning on him before the job is done.
What to watch for
George ‘Gabby’ Hayes appears here as a plain-spoken mailman rather than the grizzled, comic sidekick persona audiences would come to expect from him, a reminder that his signature character was still taking shape this early in his run of Lone Star westerns with Wayne. Lucile Browne, who co-starred opposite Wayne in Rainbow Valley, played a similar leading role for him the same year in Texas Terror, part of the rapid-fire production pace typical of these budget westerns, where the same small pool of actors and crew cycled through several pictures within months of each other.
