Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937)** 1/2 (out of 4)A woman's father goes missing looking for a lost Indian city. Soon a survivor from the exploration shows up with bizarre terrors so The Three Mesquiteers (Robert Livingston, Ray Corrigan, Max Terhune) agree to help the woman search for her father and the lost city.RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING SKULL often gets called the best "Western- horror" film but that's a bit of a stretch. I'm not going to challenge it being called the best of its sub-genre but at the same time, to be honest, there aren't too many horror elements, although the haunting and curse of the lost city is enough to make it of slight interest to horror fans who might not other wise watch a film with The Three Mesquiteers.With that said, for the most part this is a pretty entertaining Western as Livingston, Corrigan and Terhune are all in fine form and Mary Russell is also good in her role as the daughter. The supporting players contain some very bad performances but nothing to take away from the entertainment. There are several nice action scenes and of course several scenes where our heroes are in peril and have to find a way out.I thought the stuff dealing with the lost city was handled well. RIDERS OF THE WHISTLING SKULL isn't going to be mistaken for the work of John Ford but it's entertaining.

One of the most interesting of the Three Mesquiteer films has the guys getting involved in an archaeological expedition to find a hidden treasure guarded by a legendary Indian cult, presumably descendants of the Aztecs because they believe in human sacrifice. At least Robert Livingston almost ends up being barbecued at the stake.Mary Russell's father and his partner went off in search of the cult and the partner came back, but he's murdered in one of those locked room puzzles. Despite or maybe because of the fact the Three Mesquiteers were in the room they go along to find a treasure and capture a killer.These modern Aztec type cultists have kept up with modern weaponry because of their leader and when you find out who it is that will be self explanatory. I'm agreeing that the film does resemble some of those cult Kharis mummy films some of which were not all that good. The end is a rather spectacular climax where the cultists are wiped out. Mother nature has more to do with it than the Mesquiteers.Mesquiteer fans should enjoy this.

By the humble standards of the Three Mesquiteers, this is definitely one of the more exciting entries in the series with plenty of fast-moving action – especially in the 53-minutes TV cutdown version which seems to be the only one now available on DVD. There is a bit of a jump in the storyline where the excision has been made, but it's easy enough to paste together what's happening even if the events are dime-novel absurd. It's amazing to think that director Mack Wright managed to shoot this one in only eight days. Diminutive heroine, Mary Russell, played mostly bits in her Hollywood career (1934 through 1938) – and no wonder. She's an attractive little lass and she knows her lines, but that's about all that can be said for her. Also on the plus side, we see and hear very little of Max Terhune's Elmer in this TV version, although there was probably not much more in the full 59 minutes theatrical offering – especially when we remember that 59 minutes would translate to under 57 minutes on TV and DVD. (My DVD is Volume 32 in Platinum's Great American Western series).

There were a long string of Three Mesquiteer films during the 1930s. The films consisted of three friends who were government agents in the old West and the films were very low-budget B-movies. However, the lineup changed all the time--and there must have been about two dozen different lineups--including, for a while, a young John Wayne. Among the most consistent lineup for the series were Crash Corrigan, Robert "Whistling Skull" begins with a member of a lost expedition arriving in town. He begins talking about some lost Indian treasure--and then is suddenly killed with a poison-tipped knife. So, the Boys and their new friends all go in search of the lost party--and possibly find the treasure as well. Livingston and Ray Terhune. Oddly, Terhune's shtick was having Elmer (his ventriloquist dummy) and--a very strange thing indeed for the West! While I'll quickly admit that these weren't particularly good films (I've seen a lot with this particular lineup), they were reasonably fun and worth seeing if you like the genre. However, among the Mesquiteer films I have seen, this must be the very worst--mostly because the acting is simply atrocious. I am not exaggerating when I say that many of the extras repeat their lines like they are reading them off cue cards...and they were dyslexic! In addition, the plot, though original, was truly bizarre.By the way, in addition to the weird plot and bad acting, the language was often amazingly offensive--even for 1937. My favorite line is "...those dirty ignorant savages" when members of the search party meet up with natives.