Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 12 April 1939 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 12 April 1939. U.K. release through British Lion. No Australian theatrical release. 6 reels. 58 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Spanish land grant claimant successfully evicts the Mesquiteers from their 3M Ranch. They decide to prove the new land baron is a phony. In the meantime, disguised in flowing white capes, they rob the baron of his rent money and return it to the farmers awaiting eviction.NOTES: Number 22 of the 52-picture series.COMMENT: Shades of Sam Fuller's later Baron of Arizona, this entry ties a couple of interesting variants on the usual stock "B"-western land-grabbing theme. We enjoyed the heroes' caped crusaders (combining Robin Hood and Zorro). This movie was actually made right after Wayne's stint in Stagecoach. He plays the leader of the trio with his customary easy assurance. The plot device of linking the trio's fate with President Garfield's assassination is clever enough and we like Kermit Maynard's obliging sheriff.Aside from what I've written above, however, The Night Riders has not a great deal to recommend it. Republic were obviously trying hard to produce a large-scale western on an extremely cramped budget. Stock shots; montages of newspaper headlines, posters, etc; closet-sized sets; meager crowds of extras; second-rate players abound. Worst of all, the direction lacks sweep. Even the few action scenes are put across in such a perfunctory fashion, they have little impact. And script opportunities to build up tension are often dissipated.OTHER VIEWS: Wayne's easy charm stands him in good stead in this "Three Mesquiteers" entry. The script allows him some forceful moments as he and his buddies join the villain's army to hunt down - themselves! The writing, alas, is often more inventively plotted and sharper dialogued than what we actually see and hear on the screen, thanks to Sherman's lackluster direction and economy-conscious production values.

Spondonman Confession: I nearly always find early b-Westerns more or less enjoyable, there's usually a lot of pleasant easy familiarity and a lot of dated stuff that can or should be forgiven. Just switch off the analysin'. John Wayne made approximately one million of these swift potboilers before he made his name – the same year as Night Riders. Even good old Gene Autry didn't make as many.Baddies forge old document proving the legality of their claim to thirteen million acres of land – they promise fairness to the tenants but deliver harshness, endless taxes and death instead. How very like all politicians always! Wayne and his two sidekicks object to this and begin a fightback as mysterious caped crusaders – Los Capaqueros replacing The Three Mesquiteers. It's the usual stuff, sub-Zorro fisticuffs and shootouts complete with self conscious melodrama: therefore all I'd hoped for, nothing more. Wayne's cohorts Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune kept on mining the b-picture vein throughout the '40's while Wayne began his climb to superstardom and the making of many movie classics. Highly enjoyable non-serious time-filler!

Mike-764 Talbot Pierce, a notorious card shark, is thrown from a riverboat and washes on shore at an inn which also houses a forger Hazelton. Hazelton has the idea of using a forged Spanish land grant that would say Don Luis de Serrano (Pierce) would own 13 million acres of land in Arizona. The courts decide it is authentic and Don Luis takes over the land and charges high taxes, cattle tolls, and rent for his land, and then evicts them after he taken everything they have including the 3M ranch. Stony, Tucson, and Lullaby decide to strike against Don Luis by riding as white robed vigilantes Los Capaqueroes, where they hold up Don Luis' tax collectors and give the money to the next person to be evicted from the valley. While this causes confusion, the Three Mesquiteers lack the evidence that will cause an investigation. They decide to take jobs from Don Luis as hunters for Los Capaqueroes, but Stony recognizes Don Luis as Pierce, but it is too late as our heroes are discovered to be the vigilantes and sentenced to be shot. Decent B western, but nothing really new and exciting considering there was never any chemistry between Wayne and Corrigan & Terhune and it shows here. I do like the Los Capaqueroes idea but the film lacks much action and the resolution to the film is sort of a downer. Remade w/ Don Barry as Arizona Raiders and again (loosely) w/ Vincent Price in the Baron of Arizona. Rating, based on B westerns, 6.

theowinthrop I'm not really a fan of the old western - "B" film programmers like THE NIGHT RIDERS, but word of the reappearance of this film on television (from a friend who talked about it with me), raised my curiosity a little about it. Despite the appearance of John Wayne (who handles his "Three Meskeeter" role of "Stony" very well) and noting Ray "Crash" Corrigan's appearance in it as well, the film did not really thrill me.I suppose for a late Depression audience it was exciting enough. And they were not too bothered by historical mistakes that only people like me think about. Wayne, by the way, has one moment which I really did like. Pretending to be one of the bad guys he bullies the heroine (whom he really likes), and so disillusions her son that the boy silently pursues Wayne and his evil associates for awhile. There is also a showboat Captain later on, supposedly giving another character some vital information, who starts reminiscing about his own brilliant performance in Macbeth - a nice brief piece of ham that was welcome.The plot has a Spanish land grant upsetting the claims of hundreds of settlers in a southwestern territory. An aristocratic Mexican, Don Luis de Serrano (George Douglas) is making the claim, and apparently has the backing of the Government in enforcing them. He is backed by an adviser named Hazleton (Walter Wills), and they have even gotten a body of evil - doers as a private army. Those are the "Nightriders" of the plot.SPOILER COMING UP: Hazleton is a forger, and the scheme is a clever forgery of his. Don Luis is an actor named Talbot Pierce, who has a criminal record. This does not come out until the conclusion.Now, although it is not quite the same thing, the plot of Hazleton and Pierce is a rip-off of the plot of James Addison Reavis who tried to use forged land grants (and brilliantly forged ones they were) to give his so-called aristocratic wife title to the territory of Arizona (the subject of THE BARON OF ARIZONA). Interesting variation.The Meskeeters stumble on a sleepy eyed President James Garfield (Francis Sayles), tells him what is going on - and get his okay to support them when they produce the evidence against "Don Luis". When they get it, Wayne's girlfriend (Ruth Randall) sends a message to Washington, D.C. But as it arrives we hear Garfield getting shot! As was pointed out before by another poster, Garfield did not have enough time in his Presidency to make a trip out west like this. His Presidency lasted six months . In that period Garfield had enough time to do the following: 1) Set up his cabinet and diplomatic corps.2) Send the name of Stanley Matthews to the Congress as choice for an empty seat on the U.S. Supreme Court - Matthews was confirmed.3) Start a government prosecution of certain leading Republicans, including former Senator Thomas Dorsey, in the "Star Route Postal Frauds". 4) Support Secretary of State James G. Blaine in prosecuting U.S. business claims to a set of islands off Chile and Bolivia (at the time Bolivia had a seacoast) that were rich in nitrates.5) Get into a messy conflict with New York State's senior Senator, Roscoe Conkling, regarding Federal control over the New York City Customs House and it's management. This was a continuation of a similar confrontation from the previous Hayes Administration.Most of these acts took up his attention from March 4, 1881 to July 2, 1881. Given that he was starting his administration, and the pace of government work was slower (far slower) in 1881 than today, all five items I mentioned fully took up Garfield's attention. On a personal note, his wife Lucretia (or "Crete" as she was nicknamed) was seriously ill in May - June 1881, and Garfield was monitoring her recovery.No time for long trips into the western regions here. A trip to Elberon, N.J. in September 1881 was a last ditch attempt by his doctors to save him by using the ozone of sea air at that New Jersey resort.Why did the script writers throw in that bit about Garfield? Well, historically the death of Garfield was during the days of the old west. It was rarely used as a movie subject (if you check this web site, putting "President James Garfield" down under "Characters", there are only five films). The closest film to dealing with Guiteau is a 1968 film. A spaghetti western made in 1970 had Van Johnson as Garfield, changed the local and entire story of the assassination.I suppose that the very obscurity of Garfield's brief term prevents it from getting the exposure that the Lincoln, Kennedy, King, and even the Huey Long Case get in our films. Garfield was a competent man, but had no real opportunity to show what he could do. The sordid nature of his shooting (Guiteau wanted an ambassadorship and was never really in the running for it) reduces this murder.The scriptwriters had some idea of the shooting - though we only hear the shots and don't see it. The telegraph operator tells the messenger boy that Garfield was going to Williams College that day (that is true - he was invited to give a speech there).It's obvious that the scriptwriters were stealing a bit from the Robert Taylor - Barbara Stanwyck film, THIS IS MY AFFAIR, made a few years earlier. Taylor is a special government operative sent by McKinley to infiltrate a counterfeiting gang, who is sentenced to death just at the time McKinley (his only contact) is killed. But that had a better script and better production values. This "B" feature had very little (aside from the Duke) to compare with it.