Heart of the Rockies

The Three Mesquiteers have a real problem on their hands. Bears from the neighboring National Park are running off the cattle from their ranch. These bears are not the Yogi and Boo-Boo kind of bears, they don't confine themselves to running off the with picnic baskets.

The Mesquiteers go into the park to kill the predators and they run afoul of the Forest Rangers.

In the meantime a family of Deliverance type folks from the hill country have a dastardly scheme going and it involves the use of a tame bear who is a pet of young Sammy McKim.

It's really dumb when you think about it. Bears rustling cattle, plenty of bear tracks around, but no dead cattle carcasses. I mean you don't have to be a Daniel Boone like woodsman to figure out it ain't the bears. Of course the Rangers ain't exactly Rhodes Scholars.

This has to be one of the worst of the Three Mesquiteer series.

Throughout "Heart of the Rockies", the Three Mesquiteers contend with losing livestock to what they think are bears. It doesn't seem to matter that this make no sense (there is no evidence of a bear mauling the cows...they just have disappeared...bones and all). What really is happening is some inbred hillbilly stereotypes are butchering the Mesquiteers' cattle and selling them....and leaving bear tracks behind.

I am sure if you are from the Ozarks or deep South that you'd feel some irritation about the way the folks are portrayed in the film. It wasn't exactly positive.

As far as the Mesquiteers go, it was the popular lineup towards the end of the series and included Robert Livingston, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune and, inexplicably, Terhune's dummy, Elmer. Yes, the film like many of the Mesquiteer and Range Buster films included a cowboy who totes a ventriloquist dummy throughout the film!!

Is it any good? Not particularly. It's not bad, not good...just another installment in the series.

After discovering that several head of cattle have gone missing, the Three Mesquiteers hire some members of a mountaineer family to rid the surrounding area of bears which they believe are responsible. What they don't realize is that the man they hired named "Big Ed Dawson" (J. P. McGowan) was actually the one who was rustling their cattle and--now that he has carte blanche to use their land to hunt for these bears--feels free to rustle even more from their herd. Compounding the problem even more is the fact that some local rangers have become suspicious that the Three Mesquiteers might be hunting these bears on federal property and, rather than showing any concern about their missing cattle, are waiting for the first opportunity to arrest them instead. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an okay grade-B Western which pretty much mirrored all of the other films in the Three Mesquiteers series in that none of them are necessarily that exceptional--but none of them are that bad either. That being said, I feel safe in recommending this movie for viewers who enjoy old-time Westerns of this sort, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

First-rate oater, with about as much action as a former front-row kid like me could want. Love that hard-riding opening over rocks, hills, and weeds, while later on the action hardly ever stops from flying fists to fast shooting to hard rock tumbles. Okay, the storyline is sometimes hard to follow but that's not the basic appeal.

Seems bad guys are rustling Mesquiteers' cattle making the guys think it's actually bears preying on their herd. Trouble is there's a National Park next to the ranch where bears live, so now our trio's in trouble with the Rangers when they go look for the supposedly marauding bears. No wonder it's a crowded plot, since there're three outfits bumping heads at the same time.

Add to that the hillbilly family and their two delightful kids, along with a hillbilly hoe-down that still has me hopping around the livingroom. Note too that the great stuntman Yakima Canutt actually has a speaking part as bad guy Coe, which probably accounts also for the flick's many great acrobatics. On the other hand, what about that touchy business about marrying off teen girl Lorna. I wonder if that crossed a censor's desk.

Anyway, it's a Republic oater which is likely why production values are better than most. Sure, the mountains ain't exactly the Rockies but they're close enough. So lean back in the saddle and and enjoy.