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"Come on, Cowboys" comes close to being the most enjoyable of the Mesquiteer series starring the Bob Livingstone / Ray Corrigan / Max Terhune version of the trio. It combines almost all the elements that fans of the series loved, but like many of these B-plus B movies, it is filled with gaffes that its loyal followers happily ignore.

Although Ray 'Crash' Corrigan was most closely identified with his Tucson Smith characterization in the "Three Mesquiteers" series, he made a even greater impression, albeit semi-anonymously, as various gorillas and large apes in a score of films including the title roles in "Zamba," "White Pongo," and the Orangopoid in the original "Flash Gordon" serial. Corrigan was very skilled in imitating simian mannerisms a la Rick Baker and made a very effective ape, often frightening the more juvenile members of the audience. but for career reasons played most of these roles without billing. "Come On, Cowboys" marks the only time he played both his ape character and Tucson in the same film. As the audience is fully aware that 'Crash' is in the suit, the scene is played for laughs as he tries to frighten one of the henchmen into betraying his boss and is one of the film's highlights as well as a great in-joke for film buffs.

Corrigan, who plays a body builder in "Come On, Cowboys," started his career as a fitness trainer to the stars of Hollywood, where he made contacts who got him small parts in movies beginning with a role as a gorilla in "Tarzan and His Mate." Why did Corrigan get so many ape parts? The simple answer is that he owned the suit. His main competition for simian roles came from Charles Gemora and Emil Van Horn, both of whom also owned their own gorilla suit too, suits in Gemora's case,but neither was quite as fearsome as Corrigan's. Van Horn lost his when his landlady confiscated all his belongings for non-payment of rent.

In 1947 Corrigan sold his suit to Steve Calvert, who continued to play gorillas until 1960 in Poverty Row productions like "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters," "Panther Girl of the Kongo," and "Bride of the Gorilla." Corrigan made a brief comeback in "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklym Gorilla," in which both actors donned the costume.

The many gaffes in "Come On, Cowboy" are typical of Republic's general one-take policy, but one wonders why director Joe Kane didn't do a quick retake of these short scenes. Tuscon mistakenly refers to Alibi as "Stony" in a brief shot and Stony refers to the Treasury Men as G-Men, not T-Men. A two minute reshoot could have corrected either of these dialogue flubs which were the fault of the actors, but Kane either never noticed or didn't care.

Chinese-American actor Willie Fung's 1930s screen persona was somewhat akin to an offensive comedic Asian version of Stepin Fetchit. In a comic scene, the actor plays a 1930s country and western song, "Don't Ever Get Married, My Son" on his 78 rpm Victrola. He is not happy with it, but the next side he plays is Chopin's depressing funeral march dirge, and he smashes the record. Surely director Joe Kane should have realized that the logic of these two polar opposite, completely different musical pieces being flip sides of the sane record was totally incongruous, and Kane should have instructed Fung to choose a different 78, but shooting the scene quickly obviously was the director's greatest priority.

The sloppiness was not just Kane's or the actor's. An even more obvious continuity error occurred in the cutting room. The scene in which Max Terhune is tied up on a dangerously careening buckboard alternates between locations that have a precipitous cliff on his left and others that have obviously flat terrain.

The film opens with the Mesquiteers performing at a circus owned by the trio's stand-up friend and his corrupt partner. Alibi does his ventriloquist act and card tricks, Tucson does a weightlifting strongman act, and Stony shows off his marksmanship. One wonders who's running their ranch while they're on tour. When their friend is jailed, the Mesquiteers again become Polyannas and agree to make their friend's year-old daughter their ward, even agreeing in court that one of them will get married to the child's pretty guardian as per the judge's order. Although neither Tuscon or Stony, a notorious skirt-chaser in earlier episodes, wants to get spliced, it doesn't seem to dawn on anyone involved to grant custody to the current guardian.

Although logic never seems to deter the Mesquiteer plots, they are filled with the type of action that kept the fans of 1930s Republic Westerns and serials coming through the turnstiles. This is the seventh appearance of the legendary Yakina Canutt in this seventh Mesquiteer entry as both stuntman and henchie. In "Come On, Cowboys" Canutt doubles for Corrigan and does his signature jump from a galloping stallion to a horse team on a runaway buckboard. Canutt would later expand on that 'gag' in the classic "Stagecoach" in 1939. The film also includes a rather uncharacteristically brutal scene in which the actor shoots two of his fellow gang members in the chest through the jailhouse window at close range to prevent their talking to the sheriff, a level of violence not common to the series.

The film ends with a reprise of the earlier wedding ceremony. How the trio get out of it is unexplained and becomes a real cliffhanger guaranteed to to bring the audience in when Mesquiteer feature #8 premiered in two months.

A brief caveat... most of the versions of "Come On, Cowboys" currently available on DVD are the 52 minute version edited for TV in the early 50s from its original 56 minute running time.

Murdoch and Crabtree, now demoted back to constable with Murdoch's return, investigate the murder of a Toronto alderman, who seems to have taken a bullet in the temple from an enigmatic sniper intent on assassinating the mayor. Both politicians are Irish Protestants riding in an open carriage during the city's annual Orange Parade, a spectacle designed to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, fought in 1690 which established Protestant supremacy over the Catholics in Ireland.

According to the storyline, Toronto Protestants traditionally like to rub salt in the wounds of resentful Catholics by routing the parade to go through Catholic neighborhoods, a deliberate provocation. Apparently an irate Catholic tries to assassinate the mayor with a rifle shot when the procession passes a nearby building, but the errant shot misses the mayor, passes through his hat, and apparently by chance strikes the alderman in the temple, killing him instantly.

If the open carriage assassination scenario congers up memories of the assassination of America's only Irish Catholic President, John F. Kennedy, it is no accident. The entire episode is meant to echo the November 22, 1963 tragedy and maintains a subtext designed to satirize the various conspiracy theories attached to that event.

The episode title, "Back and to the Left" is meant to reference the movement of the President Kennedy's body after the fatal shot hit him, movement Warren Commission critics claim is consistent with a shot from the right front (i.e. "the grassy knoll"). Even though this murder occurs in 1899, Murdoch finds some movie film of the event, which he is able to supplement with a still photograph in a stereoscope to ascertain that the victim is forced "back and to the right" as the Zapruder Film apparently showed JFK's body to move.

The aldeman of the episode is named Alek Hidell, not coincidently an alias used by Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Nov. 22. When Dr. Ogden and her protégé Dr. Grace are able to prove that the bullet holes in the mayor's hat and the alderman's skull don't align and couldn't have followed such a torturous path, they refer to the slug as "the magic bullet," a clear reference to the stretcher bullet found at Parkland Hospital which allegedly created multiple wounds on Governor Connelly after passing through JFK's throat.

Initially the police believe the assassin to be an Irish Catholic firebrand who denies any accusation and refers to himself, as Oswald did, as a "patsy," who was tricked into transporting a rifle in a rug the same way Oswald transported his weapon into the Texas Schoolbook Depository in a long paper bag. Also like Oswald. he is assassinated himself before he can prove his innocence. Hidell's real killer is a second gunman who used boxes to hide in his "sniper's nest," which echoes the term used to describe the area of the depository utilized by Oswald.

Allusions to modern cultural references as self-parody and dramatic irony has always been part of "Murdoch Mysteries" great appeal. I understand that the JFK Assassination subtext was likely utilized to give some added interest to what would otherwise be at best a mediocre entry in this usually excellent series, but it also signifies that after 52 years, the America has sufficiently healed enough that it can tastefully satirize what was one of the most traumatic tragedies in our nation's history.

Tony Quinn was a magnetic, charismatic performer born in Mexico of an Irish grandfather. In this documentary he is well- remembered as Zampano the bestial strongman of Fellini's "La Strada" and as Zorba, Kazantakis's philosophical humanist in Michael Cacoyannis' "Zorba the Greek." Quinn's characters are the most Rabelaisian in film history: outrageous, raunchy, crude in every way, deliberately stubborn when he believed in the truth, relentless against hypocrisy, and against all forms of popular opinion; but, at the same time he was capable of profound insight into the human condition.

He won well-deserved Oscars for "Viva Zapata" in 1952 and "Lust for Life" in 1956 stealing every scene from the films' nominal stars, Marlon Brando and Kirk Douglas, a difficult task. Winning the lead actor award eluded him. I'm surprised he only won the two Oscars as he was deserving in the leads in "Zorba the Greek" and "La Strada." Quinn's private life was tempestuous: a long list of lovers, including Katharine DeMille, daughter of Cecil, whom he met on the set of his first film "The Plainsman" in 1936. The couple suffered tragic loss when their son drowned in the swimming pool of neighbor W. C. Fiels, a pool that Quinn had urged the comedian to fence in.

Quinn's last film was released posthumously in 2002. Besides his film legacy, he left the world ten children by three wives and scores of great screen moments to cherish. This biographical documentary reminds his fans of the loss of a great actor and screen personality.