One of 51 westerns by Republic, in the late '30s and early '40s. under the banner of The 3 Mesquiteers: a combination of mesquite and musketeers. The identity of the 3 actors varied. John Wayne was one in only 8 of them, including this one. With a run time of only 56min., it packs in a lot of scheming and action. This is an early example of the directing of George Sherman of Republic B westerns. He would later switch to Columbia, and then to Universal, nearly always directing B westerns. Here, Wayne as Stony, Roy Corrigan as Tucson, and Max Trehune, as Lullaby are the 3Ms. Lullaby occasionally got out his dummy and practiced ventriloquism.......The 3Ms are assigned the task of identifying and arresting the members of a mysterious gang of rustlers , who seemingly make the cattle disappear without a trace. They run into a friend, Tex, who has been trying to go undercover to discover the workings of this gang. But, he hasn't had any success. Stony suggests that Tex take his place as one of the 3Ms,while Stony disguise himself as an escaped prisoner. Based on some information, the real Stony decides to first check out the Payne Health Dude Ranch. He soon talks his way into a job with Payne, who turns out to be the kingpin of the rustling racket. Stony gets the assignment to kill the 3Ms. He rides with a couple of henchmen to the Mason' s house, where they are rumored to be. He goes in, we hear 2 shots, and he exits. Amazingly, the two henchmen don't investigate, assuming that he did his job on 2 of the 3Ms. Stoney arranges a big funeral for the 2, that attracts the whole town.(but where are the bodies??) The idea is that the rustlers will figure this is an excellent time to rustle some cattle, and Stony can find out the planned pickup location. The rustlers use a pair of long 18 wheelers, that look nothing like typical cattle trucks, to transport the cattle. Stony sits beside the driver of one, until the henchman pulls a gun on him, declaring that he must be the real Stony. He's about to shoot Stony when Tucson and Lullaby appear out of nowhere and shoot the gun out of the henchman's hand. The 3Ms succeed in getting the henchman to tell them the revised location of the cattle pickup, only after locking him in the truck and turning up the refrigeration system. Pretty soon, a posse shows up, and(I forget why) are loaded in the truck, with their horses, for transport to the designated pickup point. Banker Hartley insists on riding in the cab , with Tucson. After a while, he pulls out a gun and directs Tucson to slow around the next curve, so he can jump out, and then the truck supposedly will go over a cliff, killing all inside. What a dastardly fellow!, But Stony manages to open the back door enough to climb onto the roof, eventually reaching the cab. Tucson sees him coming, in his mirror, and shoves Hartley out the door, as Stony slides into the driver's seat. What a cliff hanger! When they get there, the posse pours out and battles the rustlers. Eventually, they are killed or surrender, and are herded into the truck. I've left out some threads, and have some reservations about details in the story....... There are 2 young women slightly involved: Lorna Grey, as Jane, is Tex's girlfriend. The striking blond Lenore Bushman, as Evelyn, apparently is a guest at the dude ranch. Too bad she only had a couple of film credits and is barely in this one. Mrs. Maxwell is an older woman, and engages in a bit of comedy, supposedly teaching Stony how to ride a horse, when she can't get on without help.

Over the course of the Three Mesquiteers series, the lineup changed all the time. The three cowboys featured in each film never was constant...and in this case John Wayne joins the more familiar Mequiteers (Tex Terhune and Ray Corrigan...who played in quite a few more films in the series). The series was enjoyable...and neither great nor poor. Compared to most B-westerns of the day, they were a bit better than average.

In this story, the Mesquiteers are, as usual, undercover agents working for the side of nicenss. They've arrived in town to investigate an insanely organized cattle rustling scheme...one that has a portable slaughterhouse that immediately processes the beef and cuts out the middleman. Can our handsome Mequiteers...and Max...manage to get to the bottom of all this?

This film is pretty typical of a Mesquiteer film, even with Wayne in the lead and the guys going undercover. As usual, Terhune whips out Elmer...his ventriloquist dummy!! I can't stand this and audiences back in the day must have groaned when they saw a couple dummies among the crime-fighters!