This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Continuity was not a big thing back in the day with A films let alone B film serials. The Three Mesquiteers in their various adventures flipped back and forth between the old west and the modern west. Overland Stage Raiders is about as modern as you can get in their stories though.The boys have decided to invest in an airline in this film. It seems as though the modern stage, make that bus, is constantly being held up and this seems a practical way to avoid robbers. Not to mention that Louise Brooks kind of perks John Wayne's interest.The robbers however are not to be denied. I have to say that this is the only western I know with a plane holdup. That in and of itself is enough reason to try and see this film.The once in a lifetime teaming of John Wayne and silent screen legend Louise Brooks is also a reason to see Overland Stage Raiders. Who would ever have figured on them as a screen team.Overland Stage Raiders is one of the best of the three Mesquiteer series with a very novel setting for a story.

What is curious about this picture is that the main protagonists: John Wayne (Stony Brooks - ha! ha! no?), Ray Corrigan (as Tucson Smith) and Max Terhune (as Lullaby Joslin) are actually very keen to liquidate their traditional existence as chivalrous knights errant on horseback. They actually want to invest in a project that will ensure that their traditional livelihood is destroyed. The project is to transport mail, gold and passengers across the high sierra by aeroplane. This will create another disconnect with the land to which these cowboys are rooted. However, they see it as just another investment which will maybe get them off horseback, out of penury and into automobiles.Odder still is the transposition of other modern technologies into a traditional western. The most obvious instance of this is the use of a bus (though not a Greyhound) as a 'stage'. I only imagine that Republic's props department had a tiny budget and so used a bus because they wanted to save cash on hiring an old stagecoach. So the bandits shoot not at varnished lumber but at steel and chrome. The cowboys are a pretty disparate bunch, and they actually seem to be rather dim. Terhune is accompanied by a dummy called Elmer with whom he engages in unfunny banter (he is not a gifted ventriloquist) - very strange. Almost sit-up-straight-and-goggle-in-amazement strange.Louise Brooks (as Beth Hoyt) has a wasted role. This was her swansong, and she was not to appear on screen again. Her career had reached a point of no return and she had to give it up, and she was dependent on hand outs from friends. The preceding six or seven years had not been at all kind to her. She looks almost unrecognisable. Her flapper bob has given way to a not overly flattering proto-Veronica Lake cut, and the lipstick is very overdone. Her beauty has vanished, and she lacks credibility as any form of love interest. Wayne is gallant in a pedestrian way and breezes through his part on cruise control.A curio of scant merit.

A real solid class "B" western with a pre-John Ford John Wayne at his shooting and roping best. Second of the "Three Mesquiteers" series, the plot is both far-fetched and intriguing for its ingenuity. Who would expect to go to a Saturday matinée and see a second billed western that involves the tactical integration of aerial spotting in defense of overland lines of communication, communications deception, gas hand grenades used to defend an improvised landing strip, parachuting cowboys and passengers, the hijacking and retaking of a cattle train, a talking ventriloquist's dummy in flight gear, and an in-flight robbery -- all within less than an hour! A more thorough examination of the plot reveals that John Wayne is aligned with the common folks against the evil and unscrupulous capitalist bus company owner who will go to no end to prevent the loss of his lucrative contract to carry the gold. I mean this movie introduces some basic economic theory into its entertainment. Quite a lot to process within such a short time. The bad guys are either shot outright, roped and hog-tied, or beaten into submission. Oh yes, Louise Brooks plays a quite forgettable part as the sister of the pilot. Not your run of the mill film. Not well made with a very lackluster ending, but worth your time. This one is a hoot!

_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.