Ride Him, Cowboy (1932) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Dan Abel ★★★

  A group of men frame a spirited horse named Duke for murdering a man. Enter John Drury, who saves Duke from a certain death sentence by the judge. He vows to train the horse better and prove it’s no killer. This puts him at odds with the local town menace, known only as "The Hawk."

  Early in John Wayne's career in the 1930s, he made a few films with Warner Brothers. I've seen one title, The Telegraph Trail, and I liked it a lot better than the Paul Malvern/Lone Star Productions B-movie fare he was cranking out at the time. Ride Him, Cowboy is another one of his Warner Brothers flicks.

  Fortunately, Ride Him, Cowboy continues the trend of Wayne's…

• Review by Quiller ★★½

  This was the first of six “b” westerns John Wayne made in the early 1930s, when he was under contract to Warner Bros. The 25-year-old was still obviously new to acting when he made it. As in so many of his other films from this period, he’s got presence and star potential but not much nuance. He’s likable, especially in his character’s more enthusiastic moments. In fact, it’s disarming to see Wayne so eager to please the camera. But he’s a little tooeager. His performance lacks the kind of gravitas that would come when he began holding a bit of himself back. It took John Ford, the master of using emotional reserve expressively, to help Wayne find that balance.

  All…

• Review by Marya E. Gates ★★★

  "Anyone going to speak for the horse?"

  This movie literally starts with a horse named Duke (an origin story of sorts for how Duke becomes John Wayne's horse) on trial for murder. We used to make movies!

• Review by Katie Carter ★★★ 1

  They really accused the horse of murder and then put the horse on trial. 💀

• Review by TajLV ★★★

  =============================
  Wild West Summer Challenge 2020
  =============================
  Task #10 - Watch a Western that has no weapons on the poster

  Before John Wayne was a box office smash, he made little films like this pre-Code Western... just 55 minutes long. Director Fred Allen cast the young actor as a drifter named John Drury, who passes through a small town just in time to see a dangerously wild horse called Duke about to be killed. Drury convinces the townsfolk that the horse can be tamed, and he proves it with his own bronco-busting skills. Owner Ruth Gaunt (Ruth Hall) is most appreciative, of course, and more than a bit smitten by the long, tall cowboy.

  However, it turns out the town…

• Review by ♡hannah♡ ★★

  Silly little random western where a horse gets put on trial for murder. Poor pacing and acting, but I think the premise is actually pretty fun, and I loved Ruth, she totally came in clutch. It helps that it was kept to less than an hour in length.

  I found it by looking at John Wayne's filmography and picking out the one with the gayest title. So yeah now I can say I've seen a John Wayne film. That's pretty much the point of me watching this.

  Crazy how none of the people filming this in 1932 knew there'd be a second world war or that America would invent the atom bomb..? Like they were just having a good time pretending to be cowboys. Some of the people in this were even alive for the Civil War. Time is so weird.

• Review by Jeffery Petrone ★★½

  Early John Wayne lead B western, it's alright.

• Review by Kari ★★★

  Entertaining John Wayne western with a horse named Duke and the lovely Ruth Hall.

• Review by Robert Fuller ★★★

  Not a gay porno, strangely enough, but a John Wayne B-Western. He's the worst actor in the movie, as usual, and his sidekick is an anthropomorphic horse (the "him" of the title) who can untie knots with his teeth and understand English, but this is actually kind of fun. It's got some colorful, almost poetic dialogue ("We'll hold court right here in the old tequila bar, surrounded by tender memories of the past") and a sense of humor bordering on self-destructive (it interrupts Wayne's big, climactic fist fight with the villain to show, for no real reason at all, the comic relief character trying to get his pony to stand up). I wish these old Westerns wouldn't speed up the film for the horse riding shots, though. Horses shouldn't be running that fast.

• Review by Robert ★★

  Early John Wayne, who I don’t really like but is actually pretty good here. The story is comically bad. And never would have expected a Western like this to end with a dumb court scene. Boo.

• Review by Lizzie ★★½

  Law & Order: Special Horses Unit

• Review by Francesco Chello ★½ 2

  Sesto dei 9 titoli (uno non accreditato) a cui John Wayne partecipa nel solo 1932. Il primo dei 6 mediometraggi che compongono il ciclo “John Wayne and Duke” (1932/1933), titoli slegati tra loro in cui Wayne interpreta un personaggio di nome John (ogni volta con un cognome differente) e cavalca il cavallo bianco che porta il suo famoso nickname. Ci viene mostrato il primo incontro tra i due, Wayne riesce a domarlo in un rodeo salvandolo dall’abbattimento e diventandone amico. Il tono è chiaramente leggero, il cavallo fa cose ‘intelligenti’, tipo liberare il socio dalle corde o fermare il villain in fuga. Ma l’andazzo generale è moscio, azione pochina e concentrata nei minuti finali con Wayne che si concede una galoppata (velocizzata) ed un po’ di cazzotti.