Red River Range

Any adventure of the Three Mesquiteers will be good, but Red River Range is not as polished as some of the other movies I have seen in the series. By polish, I mean that were continuity and script issues that I felt could have been handled better.

Everything starts fine with a build-up of the importance of the Mesquiteers. When the town sends for one investigator to help the local sheriff find out who has been stealing the ranchers' cattle they end up with three! However, there is a switch along the way. The meat industry sends out its own agent to investigate what is happening to the cattle in the area. That investigator is Tex Reilly (Kirby Grant) who happens to be an old friend of the Mesquiteers. When he runs into the trio he explains that his face may be known to the cattle rustlers, so he trades places with Stony (John Wayne) and rides into town with Tuscon (Ray Corrigan) and Lullaby (Max Terhune). Stony investigates Tex's lead by masquerading as escaped murderer who falls in with the rustlers. That makes a total of four people working as Mesquiteers. From there the adventure unfolds!

There were a few things that made me feel the quality was lacking in this movie. In one scene Tex refers to "the kid" before any kid has been mentioned or seen. In the next scene Tuscon and Lullaby meet Tommy (Sammy McKim). A scene must have been edited from the film or the scenes were edited out of order. Another thing that is really minor but noticeable is the lack of development of the main bad guys, Payne and Hartley (William Royle and Perry Ivins). They are taking/giving orders throughout the movie, but they never come across as really strong villains.

The last thing to complain about is something that I perhaps should not mention, but it was significant. Red River Range recycles a plot element that I remembered from a Gene Autry movie, Public Cowboy No. 1 which was released in 1937. In that movie the cattle rustlers butchered the cattle on the range, buried the hides and waste, and moved the beef out in refrigerated trucks. That is repeated in this Mesquiteers adventure. Complaining about re-using plot elements in a B western may be a bit like complaining about 14 shots coming from a six shooter without reloading, but what seemed to be an original twist on cattle rustling in one movie reeked of plagiarism in the next. To be fair to Red River Range there is a plot element that I have not yet seen anywhere else. Vacationers at a dude ranch are taken out to rustle cattle as part of the everyday activities without knowing that they are helping real cattle rustlers.

Perhaps I have nitpicked too much because over all Red River Range is worth viewing.

No matter what film John Wayne appears in he's always interesting to watch. Besides the fact that as an actor he was used by novelists and directors to reinvent the American west, as a personality he was endearing to watch, especially in this film where he is more important than the storyline.

One of the more enjoyable entrées in the Three Mesquiteers series is Red River Range which finds the boys working as government agents to stop some cattle rustling.

Unbeknownst to John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, and Max Terhune the meatpacking industry has hired its own agent, Kirby Grant, to get a line on the rustling. That in itself was an interesting aspect of this film, the inflation of meat prices as a result of cattle rustling. One never does think of the economic hurt, those rustlers cause.

Kirby's cover is blown before he can infiltrate and folks in the Red River country already know the Mesquiteers are coming. So Wayne and Grant switch places and Wayne poses as an escaped killer.

The focus of the investigation is a dude ranch where some mighty strange goings on are occurring. Can't reveal what the scheme, but I assure viewers it's a lulu.

A bit more comedy than usual in this film in the person of old vaudevillian Polly Moran, an amazonian tourist at the dude ranch with eyes on the Duke. Good thing the investigation was over as soon as it was because who knows what John Wayne might have had to do to keep his cover.

Red River Range (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

"B" Western from Republic has The Three Mesquiteers (led by John Wayne) trying to determine the cause of various cattle going missing. This is really no better or worse than the thousands of "B" films made during this period but you do have Wayne here, which puts it a notch above other films that did this very storyline. There's some nice action but the story is oh so predictable.

As of now, the only way to view these is on AMC but that means you also get commercials. Hopefully one day all the films will be released in a box set.

This film begins with cattle ranchers reporting that a significant number of their cattle have been stolen with no clues being left behind as to who might have taken them or how they were taken. Everything is a mystery. To that effect, not knowing where else to turn, the ranchers petition the governor for assistance and, rather than sending one investigator, he sends the Three Mesquiteers to check it out. To their surprise, once they arrive, they meet a friend named "Tex Reilly" (Kirby Grant) who has been hired by a private company to also investigate the situation. What none of them realize, however, is that the cattle rustlers have not only adopted an innovative system to avoid detection, but they also have a high-ranking member from the local town on their side who provides them with enough inside information to stay one step ahead. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an okay addition to the Three Mesquiteers series with John Wayne once again performing in the role of "Stony Brooke." Additionally, both Ray Corrigan (as "Tucson Smith") and Max Terhune ("Lullaby Joslin") also reprise their roles as well. Yet in spite of the solid performances of both John Wayne and Ray Corrigan, the film suffered--once again--from the exceedingly corny comic relief provided by Max Terhune. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find his ventriloquist act to be very entertaining. Be that as it may, although I don't consider this particular film to be one of the better additions to the series, I suppose it passed the time well enough, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.