While The Three Mesquiteers may have been conceived and marketed as a cowboy trio series, when one looks at the marquee posters over time, something becomes clear: there was really only one star. Robert Livingston. His Stony Brooke has always been the heart of the series, with Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune simply serving as support.
Outlaws of Sonora is undoubtedly Livingston’s starring vehicle, where his talents (as an actor and stunt man) are brought ever more into the forefront. But there is only so much one can do with a necessarily limited role such as Stony. What’s Livingston to do? Go the Peter Sellers (or Eddie Murphy) route, basically, and perform a dual role. And not just any. The villain! This is not the first time this has happened, oh no, not by 1938 (I’ve seen many a silent comedy short with the same plot), but Outlaws of Sonora marks an occasional new direction for the B-western.
It doesn’t take long for Stony to run into his dastardly doppelganger, in the form of Dude Brannen. In a case of “incompetence necessitated by the opening act,” Stony is captured by Dude’s lawless band of outlaws in a cross-country delivery of “$” sacks. Stony’s life is only saved when Dude notices their uncanny, and highly coincidental, similarities. See for yourself:
Hold up, that isn’t right. But it really works on the same principles. Mustache = evil. Darker outfit = evil. Such easy visual shorthand rather frees Livingston from that pesky need to differentiate his characters through acting. (He’s no Alec Guinness, circa Kind Hearts and Coronets.) See for yourself:
“You look just like him, Dude,” one of Dude’s goons opines, in the first of many lines which recall The Big Lebowski. And Dude (it sure feels odd without the preceding “the”) has precisely the brainstorm the screenwriters were wishing for. He shall shave off his mustache, wear good guy clothes, and pin all his misdeeds on Stony. Then where’s a bounty on Stony’s head, they collect. Mwa hah hah hah HAH!
You’d think this setup would be enough to fill out the scant hour these Mesquiteer masterpieces run, but you woefully underestimate this series’ need for purposeless padding. So get ready for 5 minutes of billiards, with an unnamed pool player who is actually credited fifth (Otis Harlan). He’s not even a professional pool player, or someone who could lend this scene interest. He’s just the guy who voiced Happy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – that’s his big claim to fame. What is this scene doing here?!
Okay, now [the] Dude can enact his reign of quasi-terror. With unerring plotdar, he goes to the same bank which has been entrusting Stony with their “$” sacks. So Dude is handed an “$” sack. So he shoots the bank manager dead. Just like that. It’s like the inhumane executions in Fargo, NOT a kids’ 30s matinee serial! Dude escapes town, but makes damn sure he is seen by all, and predictably mistaken for Stony. Mesquiteers Tucson and Lullaby do not know how to take this news, and simply deduce that “He is loco.’
In a movie that absolutely cannot settle down on telling a rounded story with complete scenes full of non-filler material, Outlaws of Sonora reveals its other ace – the Montage. Around 35% of the movie is montage, while another 35% is time-wasting – that means under a third is actual movie. So Dude’s reign of Stony terror is conveyed through the usual 30s means: stock footage, spinning newspaper headlines (oh yeah), and Robert Livingston performing context-free variations on all his favorite stunts while attempting an “evil” persona. His maniacal laugh peppers the film, which is to its detriment since Livingston cannot conjure up a single genuinely evil iota. It’s like trying to be a Justice League villain on helium.
Oh, and even the freaking montages need filler content! So they don’t just show us assembled clips. They fade ever soooo sloooowly between clips, creating massive pockets of unwatchability throughout. (The image above partly suffers from that.)
Nothing’s progressing on the Tucson/Lullaby side of things, and Dude is engaged off in Montage Land, so let’s look in on Stony. Film well over half over, he manages to get the better of the least competent guard I’ve ever seen in a genre full of incompetent guards. He then knocks out Dude’s dukes, taking Dude’s place as Stony pretending to be Dude pretending to be Stony. Thank Jeebus, this movie is finally starting to take advantage of its “mistaken identity” premise!
For…all of half a minute. That’s how long it takes Dude to recover, and holler out Stony’s deceit. The various nearby goons instantly know who the real Dude is – ‘cause far be it from a B-western to present the tiniest amount of hero/villain confusion, even when it’s purely appearance-based (not moral). But this at least leads us to something expected, which we’ve been mostly denied – a horse chase. With gunplay. (Oh, and it’s largely expressed in montage, naturally.) And I’m not even counting this stuff as “time wasting,” even though it surely is, because by Mesquiteer standards this is content.
No, here’s what I would call “time wasting” – A 10 minute scene set in an Old West saloon, with zero connection back to the “story.” This is Rosita (Stelita Peluffo), who sings a saucy Spanish number, but it’s been dulled and slowed enough to be palatable to a 1930s white audience. In other words, it’s completely stultifying. And guys, it’s a little late to attempt the “sexy Latina” thing (nine entries after failing to do so with freaking Rita Hayworth!) when your leading lady is as strangely odd in appearance as this. (At least we’re not saddled with a love interest this time, as Outlaws of Sonora can barely get its act together long enough to tell an A-plot.)
With the film entering its final 10 minutes, and the conflict between Stony and Dude seemingly forgotten about, what do they do? They load up the highest quotient of Elmer Horror in any Mesquiteer film so far. That is, long, loving shots abound of Lullaby’s Satanic ventriloquist doll, and I can say without exaggeration that these images could never be charming. I’m surprised 30s audiences could stand for such mortal terror, seeing as these are the same people who thought the original Dracula was “scary.” I no longer have any new ways to warn readers about Elmer’s soul-sucking appearance, so let us just say Elmer is suddenly on screen for way too long, and it literally made me shiver.
Here he is, in the middle of mentally undressing Rosita:
And here he is – AH GAHGGHH! – I don’t even know what the hell beast is doing here!
And so, finally, in comes Dude (or maybe it’s Stony…nah!, it’s clearly Dude – confusion is never even attempted), He’s finally realized the problem with his plan to frame Stony – he looks exactly like the man! Since this is what inspired Dude in the first place, I’m surprised it skipped his mind. And his solution is to seek out the town doctor, and demand some plastic surgery…Uh…WHAT?! Plastic surgery, in the Old West?! Oh sure, my insistence on questioning Mesquiteer logic is a fool’s errand. Remember, the late 30s practically invented plastic surgery as a “cure all” plot device – see roughly 13 different Charlie Chan movies…
Stony arrives and – A fistfight resolves everything. For the good guys. I have lost the energy to over-elaborate upon this.
Only…Stony dukes it out with Dude. One actor, remember, done five decades before the CGI era, trying to play two guys fighting each other. Needless to say, it isn’t a hugely successful effect. Nor does Stony’s ultimate victory ease my “concern” that random riding posses still won’t try to kill him for the bounty – which the movie conveniently forgot all about half an hour ago.
Before I sign off, let me consider the rest of The Three Mesquiteers’ first cycle – the final two films made while this most famous trio remained. (Livingston left.) These movies don’t exist on DVD, or online, or really anyplace other than rotting in some basement in Los Angeles, so there’s not much I can respond to. Here goes…
Riders of the Black Hills (1938) – The Black Knight, being a horse and not a Middle Ages warrior or a cheap Batman knockoff, has been horse-napped. The Mesquiteers are framed and arrested for this job, seeing as they (in)conveniently have a horse which looks exactly like Black Knight. (If it was good enough for Stony...) It seems as though everything climaxes with lookalike steeds racing in each other’s steads at the big derby. If it’s anything like Charlie Chan at the Race Track, I would hate it. (Interestingly, it’s starting to seem as though all 1930s franchises visit the same settings. If the Mesquiteers go to the opera, I’ll know something’s up.)
Heroes of the Hills (1938) – The Mesquiteers, being kind and loving friends to all humanity, decide to do the charitable thing in light of prison overcrowding and start their own chain gang. Did I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang teach no one in the 30s that this was an asshole thing to do? Conflict arises when the Mesquiteers face off against an evil developer (is there any other kind?) who wishes their chain gang to fail so her can profit from building a new prison – Never mind the fact that this chain gang was started in the first place because there wasn’t enough money for a new prison. Plot holes, in a Mesquiteers movie? No!
This is not the end of the franchise, not by a long shot (16 down out of 51), but it is the end of an era – the Original Era. There is nothing new under the film series sun, and the 30s were just as open to recasting major parts as any film period since then. And even with Robert Livingston (temporarily) bowing out, that means we haven’t seen the end of Stony Brooke. What joy!
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Three Mesquiteers (1936)
• No. 3 Roarin’ Lead (1936)
• No. 4 Riders of the Whistling Skull (1937)
• No. 5 Hit the Saddle (1937)
• No. 6 Gunsmoke Ranch (1937)
• No. 7 Come On, Cowboys! (1937)
• No. 8 Range Defenders (1937)
• No. 9 Heart of the Rockies (1937)
• No. 10 The Trigger Trio (1937)
• No. 13 Call of the Mesquiteers (1938)
• No. 19 Santa Fe Stampede (1938)
• Nos. 29 – 38 (1940 – 1941)
• No. 35 Prairie Pioneers (1941)
• Nos. 39 – 51 (1941 – 1943)
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