Pals of the Saddle (1938) User Reviews

A 'Best of the Best' Wayne Skeeters Outing

[Mesquiteer · 7/10 · 11 February 2005]

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.

"Our partner don't usually go around murdering strangers..."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 21 January 2007]

In 1938, Republic Pictures decided to use Robert Livingston in feature films, including "The Lone Ranger Rides Again" serial. Needing a replacement for Livingston in The Three Mesquiteers franchise, they turned to John Wayne who came along to Republic in 1936 with the merger of several 'B' film companies. Wayne had appeared in sixteen films for Paul Malvern's Lone Star Pictures group released through Monogram. Though he made six films for Universal in 1936/37, they weren't very successful, so back at Republic, he became Stony Brooke, teaming up with Ray "Crash" Corrigan as Tucson Smith, and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin; "Pals Of The Saddle" was their first effort together. There's no doubt as to who the headliner was, as lobby cards and posters of the films during Wayne's run highlight his up and coming star status. I don't know when Terhune first began to use a ventriloquist dummy, but Elmer appears here with a limited speaking role, his parts would grow as the series progressed!

The story itself is a fairly spirited one, accompanied by a lively musical soundtrack. I had to chuckle over the main plot element, a fictitious material called 'monium' was being mined and smuggled to a foreign government by the villains of the piece to be used as an ingredient in a poisonous gas. At the time historically, America was trying to maintain it's neutrality while Europe was being threatened by Hitler. More than one of the Charlie Chan films of the era used a similar story line, and I had to do a quick double take to stay on track. These later Mesquiteers films seemed to exist in somewhat of a 'time warp', as 1880 style cowboys did their thing as the modern 1930's managed to intrude. In the opening scene, newsreel stock footage is used to portray a military battle with an armored tank plainly visible!

Stony and the boys decide to help out a female government agent (Doreen McKay) smoke out the bad guys involved in the smuggling operation. In a somewhat convoluted series of events, the good guys and bad guys manage to trade the upper hand a few times before it's all over. During one of these, Lullaby springs Stony from the locals holding him for a murder frame-up using a 'Chicken Inspector' badge. I got a kick out of Judge Hastings (Joseph Forte), the brains of the bad guy outfit, as the 3-M's take off in a covered wagon with the contraband monium on board. Calling his men to action, he yells "...we want to try and save that gold." He must have gotten his story lines mixed up!

Wayne, Corrigan and Terhune would remain together for six Mesquiteers movies, with Ray Hatton taking Max's place in two more playing the role of Rusty Joslin, Lullaby's brother. In the latter part of Wayne's run, Republic and director John Ford tapped him for the lead role in "Stagecoach". When Wayne eventually left the Mesquiteers, he in turn was replaced as circumstances would have it, by Robert Livingston. The trio series would continue for a few more years with even more replacements. Between 1936 and 1943, Republic churned out a total of fifty one of these oaters!

At the present time, AMC seems to be running the John Wayne Mesquiteers films on an alternating schedule during it's Saturday and Sunday lineup. If you're a fan, you owe it to yourself to catch at least one of these featuring a young John Wayne before he became 'The Duke', and you'll have a lot of fun to boot!

Is Monium An Element Or A Compound?

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 21 January 2007]

Pals of the Saddle find the Three Mesquiteers getting involved with a group of war profiteers in the time before World War I. Somebody has the bright idea to smuggle something called Monium out of the USA in violation of the Neutrality Act for use to make poison gas. People in 1938 still remembered the horror of poison gas used in the war and also recently by Mussolini in his invasion and takeover of Ethiopia. That made it a topical film and gave it a dimension we can't appreciate today.

The bad guys use a salt mine as a cover and chlorides are what makes up salt. Why the scriptwriters were concocting some fictitious element called Monium to use when they could have just as easily said chlorine which was in the some of the poison gas used in World War I is beyond me.

Doreen McKay is an undercover U.S. Secret Service agent who gets Wayne involved in her investigation when her partner is killed. Wayne takes the partner's place and nearly gets himself done in. Good thing Corrigan and Terhune are around.

There's an exciting shoot out at the end as the Mesquiteers stop the wagon train of Monium from crossing the border.

This was Wayne's first Mesquiteer film and it certainly was a step up from his Monogram films of the middle thirties. He and Doreen McKay have an interesting relationship, sort of like what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had in some of their Republic Pictures.

Pals of the Saddle is not however the best of Wayne's Mesquiteer films. Still it's entertaining and will please fans of the eternal Duke.

The "Duke" Joins the Mesquiteers

[bsmith5552 · 6/10 · 16 February 2001]

"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.

Short and Fun

[Michael_Elliott · 27 February 2008]

Pals of the Saddle (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The first of eight Three Mesquiteer films John Wayne made for Republic from 1938-39. In the film, Wayne is accused of murder so he and the two others must try and clear his name while bringing down bad guys trying to sell poison gas. This is one of the better films in the series that I've seen. Wayne is his usual self, although he certainly wasn't the legend he was to become. The story movies pretty fast at 55-minutes and the supporting cast adds nice support. The fight scenes are all pretty well done.

The 3 mesquiteers twart the export of a mineral made into poisonous gas

[weezeralfalfa · 6/10 · 12 June 2018]

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 in only 8 of them, including this one. With a run time of only 55 min., it packed in a lot of scheming and action. It's an early example of the direction of George Sherman of B westerns. He would eventually, switch to Columbia, and then Universal, always almost exclusively directing B westerns. Here, Wayne as Stony, Ray Corrigan as Tucson, and Max Trehune as Lullaby are the 3Ms. The latter occasionally got out his dummy, Elmer, to practice some ventriloquism...... The screenplay differs from the usual rustlers, gold thieves or range war. Here, they get involved in trying to stop the outward smuggling of a rare mineral, monium, that can easily be converted into a new type of poisonous gas, for warfare. Doreen McKay, as Ann, is much more than just a token female presence. She's a Secret Service undercover agent, trying to determine who the leaders of this illegal export are. When her partner, Frank, is killed by foreign agent Paul, she suggests Stony be her new partner. He has a price on his head for his said role in Frank's and Paul's deaths. If Stony works out well as her partner, she will drop the charges against him. Stony is given a new name, and a slight disguise . He brazenly gets in the stockroom for the monium, posing as the foreign agent, but is eventually recognized by Gordon: head of the storage facility, as a fake. The monium is loaded onto a series of covered wagons for transport to an awaiting ship across the border. Stony is tied up and put in the last one of these wagons, for an unknown fate. From a hill, Tucson, Lullaby and Ann see Stony put in the wagon. Ann goes for help from the border patrol cavalry. Meanwhile, Tucson and Lullaby sneak up on the wagons and disable the drivers, freeing Stony. They redirect their wagon, and another chases them. Somehow, their wagon catches fire, so they get on the horses and unhitch the wagon, which goes over a cliff. Later, they have a perch on a hill above the wagon trail, close to the international border. They fire at the wagons, hoping to stop them from crossing the border. Eventually , the cavalry arrives and finishes the job......Generally, an exciting western, even thought the main plot device: stopping the shipment of monium is purely imaginary.

Fast paced western.

[michaelRokeefe · 5/10 · 27 May 2000]

Remember Saturday mornings at the movies? This is a perfect example of the memories. Almost an hour of good guys, bad guys, pretty gal in trouble and gun play. Three saddle pals stop foreign spies from smuggling a dangerous chemical into Mexico. The chemical is used to make poison gas. Fast horses and stray bullets travel with the familiar generic background music.

John Wayne, Ray 'Crash' Corrigan and Max Terhune are the saddle pals. Doreen McKay is the government agent that needs help catching the bad guys.

Not meant to be enjoyable, but it is!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 25 March 2018]

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!.

As PALS OF THE SADDLE begins with a covered wagon train . . .

[oscaralbert · 5/10 · 23 May 2016]

. . . 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!

Pals of the Saddle

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 14 February 2022]

After saving a girl, Ann (Doreen McKay) on a runaway horse, The Three Mesquiteers and in particular Stony (John Wayne) find themselves aiding her as she is in fact a government agent. Ann is trying to get to the bottom of who is smuggling a chemical used to create poisonous gas out of the country and in to Mexico. But after posing as a foreign Agent Stony fids himself being taken a prisoner.

A little different from the other three Mesquiteers entries, mainly because of the cloak and dagger and inclusion of the poisonous gas, Pals of the Saddle is a fast-paced western ( well sort of western as Wayne and co. Dressing as cowboys, riding horses etc and theres the rugged landscape, but apart from that it's setting is 1938), has some good surprising twists, the usual non-taxing fun - if you're looking for lighthearted, action western with nary a psychological depth then look no further. Also, this film is loaded with some death-defying stunts.

Range exploits that are far from a gas

[shakercoola · 5/10 · 3 May 2022]

An American Western; A story about three cowboy pals known as the Three Mesquiteers who befriend a woman and then are involved in foiling enemy agents who plan to smuggle poisonous gas into Mexico. This is the first in a long series of films based on the Western novels of William Colt MacDonald involving a trio of travelling cowboys set in the modern West. It's a formulaic oater of modest means but it keeps a good brisk flow of drama. The plot is protracted and the falsely accused of murder device is well-worn. John Wayne is lively and has presence as the hero with the stubble. Doreen McKay as a strong female character makes their scenes together attractive.

The first Three Mesquiteers film from Republic Pictures.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 1 February 2023]

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.