There is a special energy about this old oater that still works for this cowpoke. It's success at the time of release can be measured by the fact 'The 3 Ms' was the opening entry in a beloved series of 51 westerns made by Republic Pictures until 1943. It captures the camaraderie of the trio western concept that was copied by not a few Poverty Row producers over the next decade. Locations are the real and expansive west, not the boulder-strewn hills of the San Fernando Valley of Republic's later output. The landslide sequence is a true white knuckler. The characters might be stale for today's youngsters but for their time they were original, fresh and, above all, tightly drawn. They were borrowed unabashedly by William Colt McDonald, creator of the book Mesquiteers, from Alexandre Dumas's trio of King's Musketeers.
A B-western director like Mack Wright knew how to establish men of action and good humour in right quick fashion. The movie has the "all for one and one for all" dynamic down pat. The plot mixes the Mesquiteers, in from a long stretch of cattle punchin', with a group of First World War vets bent on homesteadin'. The Mesquiteers are vets, too, and the bond is instant, abetted by a vet's sister to draw Stony Brooke's eye. This device made B westerns magical, melding a mythical west of cowboys on horses with technology like automobiles and telephones. All done without a single note of self consciousness. As a kid I believed such a hybrid west really existed somewhere in the great undefined American southwest. The villains are cattle men not partial to squatters, even if the nesters have served their country. That makes the villains all the more heinous, which they prove in a scene guaranteed to boil your blood. That's followed by a funeral guaranteed to wet yur hankie. As an adult the Mesquiteers still resonate with this unrepentant rescue-ridin', maiden-savin' do gooder.
