Riders of the Black Hills

This film begins with a thoroughbred horse by the name of Black Knight winning several prestigious races and netting a hefty sum of money of his owner "Mrs. Peggy Garth" (Maude Eburne). For her part, Mrs. Garth graciously uses that money to help build a children's hospital which only requires another $50,000 to finally complete. Unfortunately, just when it appears that she will soon have the necessary funds, Black Knight is kidnapped right before an extremely important race--and the ransom price puts the entire children's hospital at risk. The scene then shifts to the Three Mesquiteers capturing a beautiful wild stallion they name Mesquite and taking him back to their ranch to integrate into their herd. Along the way, they are spotted by the local police who mistake them for the kidnappers of Black Knight--and from that point on the Three Mesquiteers become involved in the search for the missing thoroughbred to return to its rightful owner. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a pretty standard Western movie which was limited to a certain degree by the rather unrealistic plot. For starters, I don't believe that there are too many professionals in the horse racing business who could mistake a quarter horse for a thoroughbred, regardless of its color. Never mind the fact that the quarter horse typically wouldn't beat a thoroughbred in a distance over half a mile--especially considering the substantial lead given to the thoroughbreds in question. But that's Hollywood for you. Likewise, I didn't particularly care for the light-hearted comedy in this picture either. In any case, although I don't consider this to be a bad film necessarily, it didn't quite rise to the standard set by most of the other films in the series, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Riders Of The Black Hills finds the intrepid Three Mesquiteers accused of kidnapping a thoroughbred race horse. It's just dumb luck that they happened to catch a lookalike range horse who also has the same kind of speed the thoroughbred does.

Some skulduggery on their part after they've cleared themselves of the kidnapping charge helps them raise the money for the horse's ransom. It's not something normally countenanced in cowboy heroes, but given the circumstances.

The best thing about this the performance of stuttering Roscoe Ates who is normally a hero's sidekick as a sheriff. What law enforcement has come to. His scenes with Max Terhune while the Mesquiteers are prisoners are pretty funny.

Terhune, Robert Livingston, and Ray Corrigan are the Three Mesquiteers in this film. Elmer is strangely absent, I almost don't know Terhune without him.