Overland Stage Raiders

A 30's Western where there are cars, there is a train... and there is a plane! Well, a Western with an airplane is quite unusual. Despite that, it is a very conventional and unpretensious Western, whitout any deepness or subtancial innovation. This B-Western from "Three Mesquiteers" franchise is starred by John Wayne as the leading man of the three (the three raiders changed from film to film, but the two other actors were the most frequently recurring in the series; Wayne played Stony Brooke in seven other flicks). Young and still cheerful John Wayne, with his long white good-cowboy hat, and with his equally white horse to highlight him among all the others (as if his height were not enough!), has all opportunities to ride, chase, flirt, fight, shoot, propose partnership in aircraft business, investigate, and protect mining company's gold, followed by his two sidekicks. In the very latest film of her career, silent cinema star Loise Brooks has a unremarkable supporting role.

_Overland Stage Raiders_ marks the convergence of two great performers, one on her way out of film, the other about to begin the most successful run in film history. Louise Brooks, star of G.W. Papst's erotic masterpiece _Pandora's Box_, makes her last appearance in this run-of-the-mill, twentieth-century entry in the "Three Mesqueeters" series. Though the plot is a preposterous hodgepodge involving the opening of air freight service to an isolated cattle town, Brooks is ever the stunner next to John Wayne, who was still a year away from A-line box office success in _Stagecoach_.

I recommend this film for three reasons:

1. The sheer curiousity value. The greatest western actor opposite the greatest actress in the history of German Expressionism while he was on his way up and she was on her way out. They met in obscurity and went on to immortality.

2. The chance to see the raw potential of John Wayne before his work with John Ford. The presence, the charisma, and the physicality that would make him a colossus are all here. Under a competent directior, these would bloom from reliable entertainment into art.

3. Everyone should see a "Three Mesqueeters" movie. This is probably the best series of the 1930s "poverty row" films, and it is a pure joy to see the workmanlike love put into these programmers. They aren't auteur classics, but for many viewers in the period, they were what movies were all about.

An American Western; A story set in a gold mining town in the Mojave Desert about hijacked gold bullion shipments reclaimed by three cowboys who have to fight off mobsters when it goes on transit. An unremarkable and predictable feature with plot-heavy dialogue, but it plays out with some vigour. There are the requisite fights, chases, shoot-outs, impressive horseplay and stunts. John Wayne as the leader of "The Three Mesquiteers" is pleasing. Louise Brooks's glamour is gilt-edged here but as a romantic lead she is not given much to do. Its modern setting with traditional Western film tropes is novel.

After several buses carrying a large payroll are ambushed by some bandits on horseback, a man by the name "Ned Hoyt" (Anthony Marsh) convinces the company that depends on the bus line, to utilize his new airplane instead. Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with the owner of the bus company who has been secretly working with the bandits all this time. So, when he learns that Ned will be transporting almost $100,000 on his next flight, he sends some men to skyjack that flight and steal the money it is transporting. What he doesn't count on, however, is that Ned is a good friend of the Three Mesquiteers who have invested a large amount of their own money on Ned's new airline, and they are determined to make sure it's a success. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an okay Western which seemed to lean more heavily upon John Wayne (as "Stony Brooke") than the other two Mesquiteers. Not that this was a bad thing, necessarily, as he put in a reasonably solid performance overall. Be that as it may, even though the film is rather short (55 minutes) and rather dated, it still managed to pass the time well enough, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Seeing Louise Brooks' last film appearance raises more questions than it answers. When I first saw this, I had never heard any LB audio. I supposed that she was one of those silent film stars kept from talkies and from stage success by poor vocal performance. Her speech was just fine, even if she came off as someone more dynamic (and well-dressed) than her character. When LB moved to NYC, surely she could have had all the radio work she might have wanted. It makes her actual choices all the more baffling.

There is an inanimate co-star: a Spartan Executive Model 7W airplane. That was a very advanced, fast four-seater. Googling the tail number, I learned much about its interesting subsequent history--and that it still flies! As the plot called for an air transport plane, there are interior shots of a good-sized airliner cabin. It is like the tardis--with an interior incongruously larger than its exterior.