just watch it!

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Director: GEORGE SHERMAN. Screenplay: Betty Burbridge, Stanley Roberts. Based on characters created by William Colt MacDonald. Photography: Reggie Lanning. Film editor: Tony Martinelli. Music director: Cy Feuer. Producer: William Berke.Copyright 20 August 1938 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 28 August 1938. 6 reels. 55 minutes.COMMENT: First of the Wayne "Three Mesquiteers" saves all its action for the final reel. Worth the wait if you're prepared to sit through a plethora of extremely dull scenes, complete with tedious dialogue to match. True, the players do make some enthusiastic attempts to liven things up. Perhaps over-enthusiastic. And it's hard to put down Duke Wayne, even when confronted by a wooden, if pretty heroine and a rather lackluster set of villains. Production values were so strapped in the first half of the picture that director George Sherman was obliged to put himself into the dude ranch hotel scenes in order to flesh out the rather sparse "crowd" of guests. The childish story with its contemporary nervous pre-war time setting (which allows the use of some ancient stock footage for openers) comes over as so laughably inept in plotting and dialogue (and often in performances as well) as to make Pals of the Saddle an unintentional but nonetheless very effective lampoon that modern audiences will doubtless enjoy!.

. . . straight out of the 1880s, I immediately thought of that TWILIGHT ZONE episode in which a tank crew from the 1960s takes a wrong turn and winds up as victims of Custer's Last Stand. (If Brad Pitt had been in command of that tank crew, Custer would have WON that tussle, and we'd all be speaking Michigander--his native language--today!) The problem for PALS is that the whole story is taking place in 1938, as the Bush Brothers' Grandpops Prescott is secretly exporting the fuel additive necessary to run Hitler's Blitzkrieg War Machine to Germany in Real Life. Meanwhile, future Bushie\Reagan Henchman John "Il Duce" Wayne is pretending to chase down covered wagon-bound Nazis traipsing around in the desert of Pretend America. By 1938, America's Wastelands had been overrun by pick-up trucks, anybody's vehicle of choice for transporting the high explosives crucial to PAL's plot. While Warner Bros. studios was making hard-hitting realistic public service flicks such as THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT and CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY, Republic Pictures' Fifth Column Outfit--led by "Il Duce"--was churning out Disinformation such as PALS to cover the tracks of the Bush Crime Family. If the so-called "Code of the West" was ever Real, these folks would have been strung up for High Treason!

If you have any partiality towards B oaters then this is impossible not to like. In fact, it is in my Top 10 for this category of less-than-A sagebrush sagas. Some complain the emphasis in the Wayne Mesquiteer movies was on him and not the group. I think the camaraderie aspect is handled with gusto by director George Sherman right up front in the story and suitably reinforced throughout the plot. Granted, Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin has too many "I'll look after the horses!" moments but he is not left to get lost. Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith has wonderful times of camera mugging, a comedic style for which he has never been properly acknowledged. John Wayne, is, well, John Wayne, a presence to be reckoned with. The Duke's "Listen Mr. Big Chest" remark to Corrigan as they duel verbally over the femme interest is a great moment. Undoubtedly unscripted.This Mesquiteer epic also has more plot, more action and more stunts than most in the series. Hey, and a flag-wavin', patriotic story line that takes you right back to a kinder era. Herbert Yates, the head of Republic Pictures, obviously knew what (who) he had on contract and was actually investing in his product. It shows throughout the picture. The is a big B. And when the Mesquiteers do that triple-tandem leap onto a moving covered wagon, well, you've got all the thrills, all the action and all the spirit of "all for one, one for all" trigger trio cowboy flick any fan could stand.

"Pals of the Saddle" is the first of eight Three Mesquiteer series westerns that John Wayne made for Republic's 1938-39 season. During this time, "Stagecoach" would be released, and the rest, as they say, is history.Comparing this film to some of his earlier efforts, one can see how far Wayne had developed his on-screen presence. He appeared much more confident and more at ease. In one scene he even impersonates a grizzled and hokey prospector complete with old clothes and whiskers. As was the case in many of the Mesquiteer films, this one is set in "modern" (the late 30s) times.In this outing he joins fellow Mesquiteers Ray "Crash" Corrigan and Max Terhune as "Stoney Brooke" in an effort to foil the evil doers plans to smuggle banned war materials out of the country to an unnamed foreign power to manufacture poison gas. At this juncture, America was still selling its neutrality in respect of the European conflict.The film is still quite entertaining and is enhanced by Wayne's performance. I was a little disappointed not to see any of Republic's familiar roster of bad guys in the picture. The supporting cast was for me totally unrecognizable. Anyway, Stoney Brooke is a long way from "Singin" Sandy Saunders.