Wayne comes to a primitive Sacramento as a pharmacist from Boston. He wanted this role because his father was a pharmacist. He immediately gets on the bad side of Sacramento's "boss", Britt Dawson, by carrying his longtime girlfriend(Lacey) across a muddy street, despite her initial protests. By the end of this scene, we are pretty sure who she will eventually wind up with. Wayne proceeds to become an ever bigger thorn in Dawson's side and they have occasional altercations. Meanwhile, Wayne and a prim young society lady from San Francisco become engaged for marriage. Later, they would have a falling out, and the young lady would return to S.F. Lacey keeps dropping hints that she might drop Dawson for Wayne, but he plays dumb, not wanting further trouble from Dawson. The story starts getting very fanciful when Wayne is saved from a hanging by a loudmouth who yells "gold!" Disgusted with both Dawson and Wayne, Lacey leaves and ends up in a gold camp with a typhoid epidemic. Wayne incredibly convinces fleeing gold miners to turn around and take his medicine to the gold camps(How many wagons does it take to transport a few boxes of medicines?!). Dawson's gang ambushes the wagon train to trade medicine for gold in the miner camps.(The fact that there were no effective medicines or vaccines for typhoid until the 20th century seems to have escaped the attention of the script editor!) The problematic developing relationship between Wayne sidekick Edgar Kennedy and Lacey's maid, Patsy Kelly, while humorous at times, is merely distracting at other times.
The character who yelled "Gold", thus saving the Duke from hanging, is based on the true story of Samuel Brannan, who wanted San Franciscoans to get excited about disbelieved rumors of placer gold in the American River valley. As he traveled the streets of S.F. yelling "Gold!", he held up a bottle with gold nuggets to prove his point. This started the initial stampede that rendered S.F. nearly a ghost town for a time. Why did Brannan do this? He owned the only general store in the general region of the gold fields and had hoarded all the supplies in S.F. he imagined miners would need. In fact, he would soon become a millionaire by charging outrageous prices for the essential gear and supplies. The character Britt Dawson might also be seen as based on Brannan. Actually, Sacramento didn't exist at the time of the gold strike. Sutter's Fort, where Brannan had his original general store, was all there was in this area. Brannan would use the fortune he made from selling supplies to the miners to buy up and develop sizable parts of existing S.F. and the future Sacramento.
At approximately the same time this film was made, Wayne was involved in another film about a gold rush near Nome, Alaska:"The Spoilers", with basically the same plot, involving a young spoiled debutante and an older worldly woman with a heart of gold vying for the Duke's heart. Costaring Randolf Scott and Marlene Detrick, it is a much better known film.
The character who yelled "Gold", thus saving the Duke from hanging, is based on the true story of Samuel Brannan, who wanted San Franciscoans to get excited about disbelieved rumors of placer gold in the American River valley. As he traveled the streets of S.F. yelling "Gold!", he held up a bottle with gold nuggets to prove his point. This started the initial stampede that rendered S.F. nearly a ghost town for a time. Why did Brannan do this? He owned the only general store in the general region of the gold fields and had hoarded all the supplies in S.F. he imagined miners would need. In fact, he would soon become a millionaire by charging outrageous prices for the essential gear and supplies. The character Britt Dawson might also be seen as based on Brannan. Actually, Sacramento didn't exist at the time of the gold strike. Sutter's Fort, where Brannan had his original general store, was all there was in this area. Brannan would use the fortune he made from selling supplies to the miners to buy up and develop sizable parts of existing S.F. and the future Sacramento.
At approximately the same time this film was made, Wayne was involved in another film about a gold rush near Nome, Alaska:"The Spoilers", with basically the same plot, involving a young spoiled debutante and an older worldly woman with a heart of gold vying for the Duke's heart. Costaring Randolf Scott and Marlene Detrick, it is a much better known film.