One of the Three Mesquiteers series of movies – there were 51 between 1936 and 1943 – Overland Stage Raiders is that strange thing, a cowboy movie set in the modern era. It opens with a gang of bad guys on horseback chasing a bus, shooting as they go. This seems like a foolish pastime, like a dog chasing a car. But it turns out that the bus is carrying bullion and this is the just latest of a string of attempts to heist the Overland Stage. What’s the solution? To switch the transportation of gold to an airplane, of course, which drives the raiders to take even more desperate measures and makes this bizarre mixture of a movie even more ludicrous.
Chasing the bad guys chasing the bus are our adventurous heroes, introduced as the opening credits roll smiling to camera and drawing their guns playfully – Mesquiteers Stony Brooke (John Wayne), Tucson Smith (Ray Corrigan) and Lullaby Joslin (Max Terhune). Brooke, Smith and Joslin would be in most of the 51 movies – all adapted from novels by William Colt MacDonald – but would be played by different actors as the years went by.
This was Wayne’s second outing as Brooke. He’d play the character eight times in total, with four of his Mesquiteer films coming out after he’d been propelled to stardom by Stagecoach. (These films where made a such a clip that there were several already in the can at that point.)
Back to the plot, which turns on the decision to buy a plane to ship the gold. This requires money and that means rounding up and selling huge herds of cattle. Which the Mesquiteers organise, what with them being public-spirited individuals and all. But malign forces conspire to prevent the cattle getting to market and then when the plane does turn up the gang comes up with a plan to hijack plane, cargo and pilot.
The air and the ground, these two realms are expected to gel but they don’t quite. Introducing John Wayne to the action via parachute – he shrugs out of his harness and jumps onto a horse! – is just one indication of how hard everyone involved is trying to square this circle.
While we’re on uneasy couplings – quadruped and internal combustion engine, the air and the ground – nothing can outdo the presence of Louise Brooks in this movie. The charismatic star of Pabst’s psychosexual silent classic Pandora’s Box was broke and it’s obvious she’s been given the part just to help her out. The role – a potential love interest for Stony – has been expanded to make Brooks’s presence make sense, but she’s not even good at playing airplane pilot Ned Hoyt’s sweetheart sister, Beth, and she seems uncomfortable doing it. She never made a film again.
Brooks’s shortcomings don’t make her stand out particularly. With little time for rehearsing, there is the strong sense of all the actors reading their lines and then waiting until it is their turn to speak again. Characterisation is similarly super basic – the goodies drink tea and are wholesome. The baddies are just a bad lot all round. In case you don’t get it, Wayne wears a white hat and rides a white horse. Occasionally, to show what a good-natured old dope he is, Tucson Smith gets out a ventriloquist’s dummy to entertain everybody. Lullaby Joslin doesn’t get much to do at all.
It is all borderline ridiculous and doesn’t really add up, but George Sherman’s hyper-efficient direction gets a lot of plot into a tight space and the gunfights on horseback are pretty good. And for fans of legendary stunt doubles, there is the odd shot of Yakima Canutt – it’s meant to be Wayne – jumping horse to horse as the animals tear along.
It’s fascinating rather than really all that good, but it looked pretty good on the Olive Films version I watched. They are no longer trading, which is a pity because they did good work restoring old curiosities. You might still find a copy out there.
Overland Stage Raiders – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
