Dark Command

This film, with a budget of three-quarters of a million dollars, was the most expensive and successful film of Republic's early years. The story is set in Kansas in 1859 where the political tensions were rising due to the slave state/free state issue. Wayne is the two-fisted cowhand from Texas who is elected the marshal of Lawrence. Pidgeon is the famed William Cantrell, a scholarly teacher who becomes a guerrilla leader, making the raids on Lawrence, supposedly on behalf of the Confederacy. It is Wayne's job to track down Pidgeon and his bunch, but he only gets them after they have burned the town to the ground in a spectacular scene. Trevor is the Dixie belle, ca...