My Favorite Westerns

Category: The Three Mesquiteers

  • John Wayne Filmography: The Three Mesquiteers: Overland Stage Raiders (1938) Part 1


    Cowboy Rhythm / Patsy Montana / 1938

    The Three Mesquiteers:
    Overland Stage Raiders (1938)

    1938

    The Great Depression is ending.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt is US President.
    Hitler’s Third Reich marches into Austria.
    Howard Hughes flys Round the world in 3 days.
    Orson Welles’s broadcasts The War of the Worlds.
    Seabiscuit beats War Admiral at Pimlico.
    A gallon of Gas costs 10 cents.
    Douglas Fairbanks dies.
    Evel Knievel is born.

    The 3 Mesquiteers (1938 Edition) John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune with Louise Brooks

    The Three Mesquiteers: Overland Stage Raiders (1938)

    Consider this a review. I know these B grade Serial Westerns are often looked back on with fondness by some folks. But not by me. As an 8 year old kid watching Westerns every Saturday morning in 1956, I gotta tell ya, this is the last thing I wanted to see. They seemed to contain everything that I figured shouldn’t be in a Western: Dolled up Cowboys wearing little kerchiefs; often singing with some sappy sidekick; cars! trucks!! buses!!! airplanes???!!!!; and Ventriloquist dummies! MY GOD! What kind of Western is that!! ?? Turned my stomach. I wanted to see Rory Calhoun or Randolph Scott or Audie Murphy. Anybody but this stuff. This definitely wasn’t the Golden Era of Westerns.

    Fortunately!!! this would soon be coming to a merciful end 1939 when Director John Ford Directed Stagecoach (Starring John Wayne). Ford saw that Westerns could be legitimate Art. So he did it. And created some Classics: Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, … This changed everything. Oh Yeah things still occasionally fell back in formula pulp, but there was more than enough good stuff on the way.

    Next Overland Stage Raiders / Louise Brooks. 

  • John Wayne Filmography continued: Pals of the Saddle / 1937


    Anyone Can Tell / The Heavy Horses

    Mustang Bar

    Pals of the Saddle / 1937

    1938 / Pals of the Saddle / George Sherman (Director) starring John Wayne, Stoney Brooke, and Max Terhune, and Yakima Canutt (uncredited). The first of eight films Wayne did in Republic’s “Three Mesquiteers” series.

    George Sherman was an American film director and producer of about 110 low-budget films – many of them Westerns. Pals of the Saddle as the first of 10 films he directed John Wayne. Over the next 30 years, Sherman directed Wayne in Overland Stage Raiders (1938), Santa Fe Stampede (1938), Red River Range (1938), The Night Riders (1939), Three Texas Steers (1939), Wyoming Outlaw (1939), New Frontier (1939), and Big Jake (1971), Sherman’s last and most successful feature film as a director. Sherman also produced Wayne’s 1961 film The Comancheros.

    george-sherman-director-producer

    You’d think a guy who made 110 movies – several with John Wayne – would get more recognition. I could find only one picture of George Sherman on the net. He appears to be almost unknown.

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937

    John gets top Bill with the Mesquiteers.

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-poster-2

    In 1937, John is 30 years old.

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-poster-3

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-imdb-review

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-allmovie-review

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-poster-4

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    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-john-wayne

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-lobby-card-1

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    Pals of the Saddle has another claim to fame: the only Western with a sidekick (Max Terhune) who had a ventriloquist dummy (Elmer) sharing his saddle.
    Sheesh.

    max-terhune-and-elmer

    But, you know what? If it made some kid smile, I guess it’s OK with me.
    (I must be getting soft.)

    john-wayne-max-terhune-and-elmer

    It sure made John smile.

    SIx Shooter Bar

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-lobby-card-3

    pals-of-the-saddle-1937-john-wayne-and-doreen-mckay

    Doreen McKay plays John’s gal.

    SIx Shooter Bar

    See ya up the trail pardner …

3 responses to “John Wayne Filmography: The Three Mesquiteers: Overland Stage Raiders (1938) Part 1”

  1. timesmightidont Avatar
    timesmightidont

    And didn’t everyone look well laundered? No creased or filthy shirts. You’d think the first pioneers to arrive were running dry cleaners. On the other hand Overland Stage Raiders is notable for being the last picture the great Louise Brooks made.

    1. jcalberta Avatar
      jcalberta

      LoL !! I was thinking the same thing, but decided to back off.
      Boy! Republic sure cranked out a pile of those things.

    2. jcalberta Avatar
      jcalberta

      Louise was a heck of a gal.

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