Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

DAKOTA is a surprisingly decent John Wayne western, well-shot in 1945 and featuring the famous actor playing a small-time gambler who elopes with his love to the West, only to discover that his intended homestead is controlled by a pair of criminals who are up to all kinds of no good in order to keep an iron grip on the land. Conflict ensues.Despite some indifferent reviews, I thought this film told its story very effectively and with a maximum of intrigue and excitement. Wayne gives a fine fine and assured performance as the smooth hero and Vera Ralston matches him as a love interest you can get behind. Ward Bond and Mike Mazurki make an imposing couple of villains and the rest of the cast is full of familiar faces and/or larger than life characters. There's not really a wealth of action here, but that which does occur is great fun; the hold up on the river boat and the climactic shoot-out are the highlights.

Many reviewers complain about Vera Ralston's acting in this film and others. I thought this failed ice skating queen did an OK job playing her role. She is supposed to be the elegant daughter of an immigrant father who struck it rich in railroads. This explains her foreign accent and the fact that she is unlike those sexy dance hall girls of Fargo. Wayne appears to have married her mainly for her wealthy connections, looks and good pedigree. She appears to have married him for his good looks and charismatic personality. She is determined to call the shots when it comes to deciding where they will live, both near the beginning and at the end of the film. When they run away from her disapproving father, Wayne tells her to buy tickets to CA, but she buys tickets to St. Paul, knowing that her father's railroad is planning to soon begin a line to Fargo. She hopes to buy land cheap from the farmers and sell it dear to her father's railroad. Unfortunately, Ward Bond and gang have the same idea. Bond assumed the railroad was soon coming to Fargo because he saw their surveyors. He also assumes that Wayne is a land buying agent for the railroad(until late in the film, when the real agent shows up). Bond hammers out a contract with most of the farmers that he gets their land if they can't repay the money he loans them to harvest and market their wheat. He plans to burn their wheat, a variation on a similar scene in "The Westerner", when cattlemen were trying to burn out the sod busters. Wayne threatens to pressure the railroad to via Grand Forks, instead of Fargo, unless Bond signs over his contract with the farmers to Wayne(and presumably the railroad) for a big discount compared to the amount Bond was planning to sell the contract to the railroad. Wayne plans to share his profit with the farmers, should the farmers be unable to repay their loans. Bond hopes to steal the contract back from a deceased Wayne, delete the part about Wayne being the new contract owner and then burn the wheat fields. See the film to find out how things turn out.Walter Brennan plays a goofy old riverboat captain who mostly talks to his boat or himself or shouts at his assistant, Nichodemis. He practically steals the show. Nick Stewart, as Nichodemis, plays his stock character:a sleepy, incredibly slow thinking "darkie". He was Lightin' in the Amos & Andy TV series.

Dakota finds John Wayne running off with Vera Hruba Ralston, daughter of railroad magnate Hugo Haas. A whim of Ralston's finds them on the way to Dakota Territory instead of the Duke's planned trip to California. Before long Wayne finds himself mixed up with the local farmers and their running battle with town boss of Fargo, Ward Bond and his three loathsome sidekicks Mike Mazurki, Paul Fix, and Grant Withers. Mike Mazurki is a particularly nasty individual here, he probably has the best performance in the film.Dakota was directed by Joseph Kane who directed at Republic a whole lot of Roy Rogers B westerns and he uses the same fast pace here. The running time is only 82 minutes and a Wayne film from Republic was an A product for that studio by 1945.One big drawback in Dakota is the portrayal by Nick Stewart as Walter Brennan's crew on his river steamboat. It's a pretty bad stereotype one of the worst I've ever seen on film.Dakota also shamelessly rips off the wheat burning scene from Samuel Goldwyn's The Westerner. I wouldn't be surprised if Goldwyn let Yates use some of the footage from The Westerner for a rental fee.However fans of John Wayne and of westerns in general will like it.

Vera Ralston was an actress that was cast into films because she was married to the big boss of Republic. In Dakota she comes out surprisingly well as Sandy Poli a determined woman, daughter of a millionaire who marries John Wayne. He wants to go to California, but she chooses Dakota and from then on she is the one who makes the most important decisions for the couple. It is not usual to see John Wayne in this situation but it makes the film more interesting. There are two familiar actors also, Walter Brennan and Ward Bond. It is remarkable that with a low budget they made quite a convincing scenery of what Fargo,Dakota must have looked like. The movie is quite entertaining except for the fact also mentioned in one of the comments, that they make too much use of scenes taking place at night. No need for that, it only makes it harder to understand what is going on.