Caballistas de la sierra

This installment of The Three Mesquiteers stars Robert Livingston, Dusty King and Max Terhune. I mention who stars in the film because the composition of this Republic Studios trio varied tremendously over the years....with many different actors being cast to play the three roles. Perhaps because of this, King and Terhune left Republic after a few more films and went on to Monogram where they made a nearly identical series called The Range Busters. The trio in this series was much more stable, though after about 2/3 of the films, a few cast changes occurred.

In "Hit the Saddle" there are two main plots. First, Stony is in love with Rita (Rita Hayworth), a saloon girl with a heart of lead. His pals are dead set against this, as they understand exactly who Rita really is. The second is about a greedy rancher who not only wants his own horses but wants to capture the protected wild horses as well. The scum-bag needs to make these wild animals look dangerous, so he and his men deliberately stampede the horses...killing the sheriff in the process! Will Stony see the light and will the trio manage to bring the horse wranglers to justice?

So is it any good? Well, since Terhune does have his stupid ventriloquist dummy, Elmer, in the film...something I simply never understood about the Mesquiteer and Range Buster films. Why is a lawman and cowboy running around with a dummy like this?! What I also didn't love was how much Stony hated his friends....as they argued throughout the story....something you DON'T expect in a Mesquiteer film! The men always play close friends....and disrupting this formula seemed foolish. Because of this, it's definitely not one of the team's better efforts.

By the way, just before the killer stampede is loosed, pay attention as one of the baddies called the trio 'The Three Musketeers'! I am surprised no one caught that and corrected it. It is possible they noticed but didn't both re-shooting it, as these B-westerns were definitely done on the cheap...and re-shoots cost money.