According to IMDB, there was oneThree Mesquiteer film before "Pals of the Saddle" but it was made by RKO. For some reason, Republic rebooted the series with all new actors and they went on to make quite a few of these B-westerns. However, I looked into it and "Pals of the Saddle" is the 17th Mesquiteer film by Republic AND there were two previous Mesquiteer films not made by Republic...TWO not one! The Trivia entry for this film is just plain wrong!
The films in the series are mostly enjoyable but suffer in two ways. First, the cast changed A LOT...with a variety of actors playing the three crime-fighting pals. In this case, John Wayne plays Stony...though Tom Tyler and Bob Livingston played the same character in later films. Second, for some inexplicable reason, the only consistent member of the trio, Max Terhune, was one weird cowboy! In each, he carried along his sidekick, a ventriloquist's dummy named 'Elmer'! Yeah, I guess any good cowboy worth his salt needed a dummy!!
Like many B-westerns, this one is a weird combination of old west and modern times. So, while the trio ride about on their horses and sport six-guns...others use semi-automatics and drive cars! This is bizarre...just accept it and go with it!
What ALSO is bizarre in this one is the plot...and bizarre it is! The film begins with news that wars are taking place and unlike WWI, the US is determined to remain neutral. But some unfriendly foreign powers want a mineral called 'Monium' in order to make poison gas...and it just happens the stuff can be mined out west.
The Mesquiteers stumble into the intrigue when two US agents are tangling with a foreign spy! Now at this point, you and the Mesquiteers have no idea who is who...and to hide their killing the foreign spy, the woman agent inexplicably blames Stony and sets the law on him.
Stony manages to escape and later meets up with the woman who quickly and without real evidence convinces him she is on the side of good and manages to get him to help her. This makes no sense at all...as EVERYTHING she's done so far shows she's either evil OR willing to get Stony killed in order to do her mission. Plus there is that pesky dead body in her hotel room!
Later, Stony's even dumber friends are also convinced to work with her...though again, there's really no proof of who she claims to be and she's been lying almost constantly. Can the three of them manage to somehow help the good 'ol USA...or are they actually helping some Axis Annie destroy freedom and implement some reign of terror? Tune in to find out.
If the plot sounds NOTHING like a western, then you have a pretty good handle on the plot! Bizarre to say the least...and not much like later Mesquiteer flicks.
So is it any good? Well, it's pretty sloppily written and confusing, as a film should NOT portray its heroes as dummies...but this is the case. So, at least Elmer is in good company!
So is it enjoyable? Yes, but mildly so. It's not among the better films in the series and although Wayne is fine, he isn't given great material with which to work. Enjoyable for fans of the series but others might just want to try another one of the movies first.
By the way, in several other Mesquiteer films, the trio played lawmen or federal agents....which makes the plot here a bit harder to understand.
