Watch Pals of the Saddle For Free

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

One of 51 westerns by Republic, in the late '30s and early '40s, under the banner of The 3 Mesquiteers: a combination of mesquite and musketeers. The identity of the 3 actors varied. John Wayne was in only 8 of them, including this one. With a run time of only 55 min., it packed in a lot of scheming and action. It's an early example of the direction of George Sherman of B westerns. He would eventually, switch to Columbia, and then Universal, always almost exclusively directing B westerns. Here, Wayne as Stony, Ray Corrigan as Tucson, and Max Trehune as Lullaby are the 3Ms. The latter occasionally got out his dummy, Elmer, to practice some ventriloquism...... The screenplay differs from the usual rustlers, gold thieves or range war. Here, they get involved in trying to stop the outward smuggling of a rare mineral, monium, that can easily be converted into a new type of poisonous gas, for warfare. Doreen McKay, as Ann, is much more than just a token female presence. She's a Secret Service undercover agent, trying to determine who the leaders of this illegal export are. When her partner, Frank, is killed by foreign agent Paul, she suggests Stony be her new partner. He has a price on his head for his said role in Frank's and Paul's deaths. If Stony works out well as her partner, she will drop the charges against him. Stony is given a new name, and a slight disguise . He brazenly gets in the stockroom for the monium, posing as the foreign agent, but is eventually recognized by Gordon: head of the storage facility, as a fake. The monium is loaded onto a series of covered wagons for transport to an awaiting ship across the border. Stony is tied up and put in the last one of these wagons, for an unknown fate. From a hill, Tucson, Lullaby and Ann see Stony put in the wagon. Ann goes for help from the border patrol cavalry. Meanwhile, Tucson and Lullaby sneak up on the wagons and disable the drivers, freeing Stony. They redirect their wagon, and another chases them. Somehow, their wagon catches fire, so they get on the horses and unhitch the wagon, which goes over a cliff. Later, they have a perch on a hill above the wagon trail, close to the international border. They fire at the wagons, hoping to stop them from crossing the border. Eventually , the cavalry arrives and finishes the job......Generally, an exciting western, even thought the main plot device: stopping the shipment of monium is purely imaginary.

Pals of the Saddle (1938) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The first of eight Three Mesquiteer films John Wayne made for Republic from 1938-39. In the film, Wayne is accused of murder so he and the two others must try and clear his name while bringing down bad guys trying to sell poison gas. This is one of the better films in the series that I've seen. Wayne is his usual self, although he certainly wasn't the legend he was to become. The story movies pretty fast at 55-minutes and the supporting cast adds nice support. The fight scenes are all pretty well done.

Pals of the Saddle find the Three Mesquiteers getting involved with a group of war profiteers in the time before World War I. Somebody has the bright idea to smuggle something called Monium out of the USA in violation of the Neutrality Act for use to make poison gas. People in 1938 still remembered the horror of poison gas used in the war and also recently by Mussolini in his invasion and takeover of Ethiopia. That made it a topical film and gave it a dimension we can't appreciate today.The bad guys use a salt mine as a cover and chlorides are what makes up salt. Why the scriptwriters were concocting some fictitious element called Monium to use when they could have just as easily said chlorine which was in the some of the poison gas used in World War I is beyond me.Doreen McKay is an undercover U.S. Secret Service agent who gets Wayne involved in her investigation when her partner is killed. Wayne takes the partner's place and nearly gets himself done in. Good thing Corrigan and Terhune are around. There's an exciting shoot out at the end as the Mesquiteers stop the wagon train of Monium from crossing the border. This was Wayne's first Mesquiteer film and it certainly was a step up from his Monogram films of the middle thirties. He and Doreen McKay have an interesting relationship, sort of like what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had in some of their Republic Pictures.Pals of the Saddle is not however the best of Wayne's Mesquiteer films. Still it's entertaining and will please fans of the eternal Duke.

In 1938, Republic Pictures decided to use Robert Livingston in feature films, including "The Lone Ranger Rides Again" serial. Needing a replacement for Livingston in The Three Mesquiteers franchise, they turned to John Wayne who came along to Republic in 1936 with the merger of several 'B' film companies. Wayne had appeared in sixteen films for Paul Malvern's Lone Star Pictures group released through Monogram. Though he made six films for Universal in 1936/37, they weren't very successful, so back at Republic, he became Stony Brooke, teaming up with Ray "Crash" Corrigan as Tucson Smith, and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin; "Pals Of The Saddle" was their first effort together. There's no doubt as to who the headliner was, as lobby cards and posters of the films during Wayne's run highlight his up and coming star status. I don't know when Terhune first began to use a ventriloquist dummy, but Elmer appears here with a limited speaking role, his parts would grow as the series progressed!The story itself is a fairly spirited one, accompanied by a lively musical soundtrack. I had to chuckle over the main plot element, a fictitious material called 'monium' was being mined and smuggled to a foreign government by the villains of the piece to be used as an ingredient in a poisonous gas. At the time historically, America was trying to maintain it's neutrality while Europe was being threatened by Hitler. More than one of the Charlie Chan films of the era used a similar story line, and I had to do a quick double take to stay on track. These later Mesquiteers films seemed to exist in somewhat of a 'time warp', as 1880 style cowboys did their thing as the modern 1930's managed to intrude. In the opening scene, newsreel stock footage is used to portray a military battle with an armored tank plainly visible!Stony and the boys decide to help out a female government agent (Doreen McKay) smoke out the bad guys involved in the smuggling operation. In a somewhat convoluted series of events, the good guys and bad guys manage to trade the upper hand a few times before it's all over. During one of these, Lullaby springs Stony from the locals holding him for a murder frame-up using a 'Chicken Inspector' badge. I got a kick out of Judge Hastings (Joseph Forte), the brains of the bad guy outfit, as the 3-M's take off in a covered wagon with the contraband monium on board. Calling his men to action, he yells "...we want to try and save that gold." He must have gotten his story lines mixed up! Wayne, Corrigan and Terhune would remain together for six Mesquiteers movies, with Ray Hatton taking Max's place in two more playing the role of Rusty Joslin, Lullaby's brother. In the latter part of Wayne's run, Republic and director John Ford tapped him for the lead role in "Stagecoach". When Wayne eventually left the Mesquiteers, he in turn was replaced as circumstances would have it, by Robert Livingston. The trio series would continue for a few more years with even more replacements. Between 1936 and 1943, Republic churned out a total of fifty one of these oaters!At the present time, AMC seems to be running the John Wayne Mesquiteers films on an alternating schedule during it's Saturday and Sunday lineup. If you're a fan, you owe it to yourself to catch at least one of these featuring a young John Wayne before he became 'The Duke', and you'll have a lot of fun to boot!