weezeralfalfa
One of 51 Republic westerns, in the late '30s and early '40s, under the banner of The Three Mesquiteers: a combination of mesquite and musketeers. The identity of the 3 actors varied. John Wayne was in only 8, including this one. With a run time of only 55 min., it packs in a lot of scheming and action. It's an early example of the directing of B movies by George Sherman. He would eventually move to Columbia, then to Universal, always directing almost exclusively B westerns. Here, Wayne is Stony, Ray Corrigan is Tucson, and Max Trehune is Lullaby. The latter occasionally gets out his dummy: Elmer, to practice his ventriloquism....... Nancy(Carole Landis) is running a circus. Her financial manager, George Ward(Ralph Graves)receives a(planted) letter offering to buy her inherited ranch for $2000. George recommends she sell it, but she balks, saying some year she wants to retire to that ranch. Besides, she doesn't need the money, as her circus brings in enough income. George, who is the inside man for a ring of villains, tells Steve about his disappointment. They decide to stage a number of dramatic 'accidents' to make the people afraid to come to the circus. Thus, the lion cage is unlatched, resulting in pandemonium. Then, a tent is set on fire. Soon, lawsuits also eat into the profits, and the circus has to fold. George again recommends that she sell her ranch, but she's determined to move there........It happened that the 3Ms had a ranch (the 3M) adjacent to Nancy's ranch, called the WE. It also happened that the sign for the 3M ranch had been knocked upside down, so that it read WE. So, when Nancy was looking for her ranch, she and a few circus people moved into the 3M ranch house, before the 3Ms returned. She was so enthusiastic about the house, the 3Ms were afraid to tell her it was the wrong house, her real house being not nearly so nice. Thus, initially, they pretended that the WE ranch was theirs. George soon arranged to set the WE barn on fire, hoping to scare Nancy into selling.......Nancy gets a letter from the government offering to buy her ranch for $75,000., as they want to build a dam there.(George had previously gotten a similar letter, hence why he was so set on buying the ranch for a pittance). This would be enough to start up another circus. However, the actions of the 3Ms have made this transaction problematic. See the movie (available at YouTube) to find out the problem and what the 3Ms did to solve it.......Nancy's circus remnant included Collette Lyons, as Lillian, and Willie: the Gorilla, who provide occasional humor. Lillian is the stereotypical sexy blond bimbo. When she got to the ranch, she asked how long it would take to learn to milk a chicken? Willie, of course, was Ray Corrigan, in a gorilla suit. Every now and then he would scare somebody or get into mischief........This was still early in the film career of Carole Landis, who wasn't in many westerns. Less than a decade later, she would take an overdose of sleeping pills. She was depressed about her revolving door romantic life. Also, her movie career seemed to be stalled. In addition, she had a number of health issues, including some residual problems acquired in the South Pacific when she was entertaining GIs during the war. Finally, she was disappointed by her endometriosis negating the possibility ofhavingchildren
whpratt1
This is a great Western Film for 1939 starring John Wayne, (Stony Brooke), who plays the role of a good guy who gets himself involved with solving other peoples problems. This time Stony helps out a gal named Nancy Evans,(Carole Landis) who is a Circus owner and very successful, who also owns a ranch she has never seen. There are guys very interested in Nancy Evans ranch property and seek to do anything within their powers to force Nancy to sell her property. These guys destroy her circus business and try to force her into bankruptcy in order for her to sell her ranch which is worth $75,000 because a dam is suppose to be built on her property. Nancy has a nice Circus horse who dances to music but is a very fast horse, so Stony, Lullaby Joslin and Ray Corrigan enter him in a house race and he wins $2,500.00 which helps Nancy. However, Lullaby Joslin,(Max Terhune) is robbed of this money and Nancy is faced with many more problems. There is a gorilla that runs all around chasing everybody by the name of Willie The Gorilla,(Naba) which adds to some comedy to this film. It was great to see Carole Landis, so young and pretty in this role, I remember her in two great film she starred in "I Wake Up Screaming" and "One Million B.C." One of the film locations in this film were filmed at Ray Corrigan's ranch in California.
bkoganbing
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.
Single-Black-Male
After the success of 'Stagecoach', as well as seeing his wife give birth to their second child, Patrick Wayne, the previous year, the 32 year old John Wayne continued to act in westerns and immortalize the American West.
