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Pretty Good

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Executive producer: Herbert J. Yates. Copyright 12 May 1939 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 19 June 1939. U.K. release through British Lion. Never theatrically released in Australia. U.K. release title: Danger Rides the Range.SYNOPSIS: Crooked manager tries to cheat a circus girl out of her ranch.NOTES: Number 23 of the 52-picture "Three Mesquiteers" series, and the last for Max Terhune, who had played Lullaby Joslin in every one of the movies thus far except Powdersmoke Range (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams) and The Three Mesquiteers (Syd Saylor). COMMENT: Although most of the action highlights are obviously made up of stock footage (the circus fire scenes were extracted from the 1937 Circus Girl and were used again by Monogram in The Ape), this one comes across as a most engaging entry. It's nice to see such a great deal of the picture devoted to Max Terhune, who even takes the main action role at the climax, while Wayne and Corrigan dispatch the villains in disappointingly short order. And in addition to the usual by-play with Elmer Sneezeweed, Max also enjoys a couple of run-ins with an over-friendly gorilla (which, although credited to an animal named "Naba", is obviously a stunt man in a fur suit). Wayne plays with his usual mixture of steadfastness and charm. It's also pleasing to see Carole Landis as the heroine, though as a brunette here she's not particularly recognizable. I didn't spot stuntman David Sharpe on-screen. He possibly performs that death-defying leap from horseback to the runaway circus team. Roscoe Ates makes a last-reel entrance to provide some comic relief whilst Billy Curtis is off somewhere and while Max Terhune (as mentioned above) is actually doing the action honors. Ralph Graves amounts to no more than a serviceable heavy. Black-hatted John Merton has to help him out. The villain's villainy is so obvious, the heroine seems pretty dumb not to tumble to him much earlier. Still, that plot seems pretty preposterous anyway. Although director Sherman's handling rates only a nod for competently routine, production values are considerably enhanced by all the stock footage. And there is one staged-for-real rough-and-tumble in a small hotel room in which our heroes take on three heavies.

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.

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.

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.