John Wayne is a true cinema icon, but the B-westerns he made after The Big Trail and before Stagecoach are often overlooked. This book focuses on them specifically, film-by-film, and presents how they show the development of Wayne as both an actor and an image. These are the films that maintained his popularity throughout the 1930s until he was cast by John Ford in Stagecoach and his career quickly advanced. These B-westerns are an important part of The Duke's movie history.

James L. Neibaur is a film historian and scholar who has authored over thirty books on various aspects of cinema's history, as well as hundreds of articles for Cineaste, Senses of Cinema, Filmfax, Film Quarterly, Films in Review, Classic Images, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica.