Three Texas Steers

This film essentially begins with a young circus owner named "Nancy Evans" (Carole Landis) refusing to sell some land she just inherited to her trusted business manager "George Ward" (Ralph Graves) for personal reasons unrelated to the business at hand. To that effect, in his desperation to own that land, George begins a campaign of sabotage aimed at forcing her sell it in order to save her circus. And when that fails, he then hires men to go after her as well. What he doesn't count on, however, is the involvement of the Three Mesquiteers who happen to own land adjacent to her run-down ranch and are more than willing to help her out any they can. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I don't consider this to be one of the better Three Mesquiteers films ever produced due in large part to the heavy focus on "Lullaby Joslin" (Max Terhune) who is typically there in a supporting role to provide comic relief. That being said, rather than featuring a prominent actor like John Wayne (as "Stony Brooke) or even Ray Corrigan ("Tucson Smith") for that matter, the director (George Sherman) chose to showcase the weakest of the Three Mesquiteers instead. And that would have been fine if Max Terhune was actually funny. But he wasn't--and this had a negative impact on the movie as a whole. At least, that is how it seemed to me. In any case, I didn't particularly care for this specific addition to the series, and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

Before he was famous, John Wayne made a bunch of "Three Mesquiteers" movies with Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune. They're pretty silly, but since it was his time as Star of the Week, I watched a few of them. They're formula, one-hour westerns, where the three cowboy friends ride into town, solve a problem, capture the bad guy, kiss the girl, and ride off in the sunset in search of the next town.

In Three Texas Steers, it involves a circus (though you'd never know from the title). Carole Landis owns a circus, and when she refuses to sell to the bad guys, she starts getting harassed. In comes the cute cowboy and his two pals (no offense Ray and Max, but we all know why John Wayne became famous) and they try their best to save the day. It might take them a really long time, though, like, almost an hour. Honestly, folks, watching one of Duke's pre-Stagecoach westerns is probably enough. He made dozens and dozens of them, but as young and cute as he is, you'll enjoy yourself more if you watch the better quality, post-Stagecoach westerns.

Another Three Mesquiteers western from Republic starring John Wayne, Max Terhune, and Ray 'Crash' Corrigan. This one has the trio helping out beautiful circus owner Carole Landis who's being robbed by villain Ralph Graves. An enjoyable B western that's probably my favorite of the Three Mesquiteer films I've seen. Lovely Carole Landis is partly responsible for that. Also the circus characters are fun, particularly Billy Curtis and Collette Lyons. They provide more humor than usual for this series. Corrigan has a second role in this one playing a gorilla. He was very familiar with that role, having been in quite a few ape suits in films before his western career. He would return to ape suits after the western well dried up. For his part John Wayne is solid as usual but there are no hints at his future superstardom here. Stagecoach had already been released so Duke was no doubt just biding his time until his contract was up and he could be done with these throwaway low-budget westerns. Comedy and a nice supporting cast make this a better than average B western of the period.

Carole Landis with her great beauty and talent showed why she was an A-list actress. Too bad with her tragic life, she left us way too soon. John Wayne, Ray Corrigan, and Max Terhune had all they could handle chasing the unscrupulous George Ward, deftly played by Ralph Graves. Terhune, as Lullaby showed his skilled vaudevillian talents throughout, especially with his sidekick Elmer. This movie was packed with action and the most enjoyable of the Three Mesquiteers series.

Besides of course John Wayne, two other movie legends got parts in the B western series The Three Mesquiteers. One was Jennifer Jones and the second in this film was Carole Landis. After a whole bunch of bit roles, Carole got the female lead here in Three Texas Steers. Right after that she got signed for her breakthrough role in One Million, BC with a 20th Century Fox contract to boot.

Here Carole is the owner of a circus who all of a sudden runs into a streak of horrible bad luck. Due to a lot of accidents her circus has to fold and she retreats to her ranch. It's a pretty broken down place, but fortunately the one piece of good luck she has is the fact that The Three Mesquiteers own the neighboring ranch.

The boys are a bit oafish in this one and Max Terhune manages to get himself swindled which nearly puts them all down the toilet, both the Mesquiteers and the Landis spread. Of course things work out all right in the end as Carole finds out who's behind her bad luck and why her ranch is so valuable.

Carole Landis had a lot of beauty and a lot of talent in one package. It's interesting to see her at this point in her career, before she went totally platinum blond. Too bad she and the Duke never got to work together again when both were A list stars.