...which featured THREE Good Guys instead of just two, there was THIS movie, which started out as a Republic Serial. I apologize for all the exposition in this paragraph, but if you consider that the theaters were running Serials over 100 years ago, there are a lot of people who have never even heard of a Serial. If you don't know what a "Serial" was, think back before there was TV. (Yes, kids - there was a time when the only place people could get their entertainment (with a moving PICTURE) was at a movie theater. Today, they don't make 'em any more. The modern equivalent is a TV series, and most of those aren't one long story, spread out over X-number of "Parts". Serials were generally made for a young audience and they would run on Saturday afternoon and they would be the first things you'd see before the Feature Film. Features could run anywhere from 57 minutes to 90 minutes, up to an hour-and-a-half back then, and stuff like the "Star Wars" movies and today's Features, for example, can run virtually ANY length was also where you got your News (which was at least a week old), and not like today, when there are things like "LIVE shots" from anywhere on the planet). Those were called "Newsreels". Each of those things ran somewhere around ten minutes, plus or minus a minute or two. (Apologies to those who already know this stuff, but it's background for those who DON'T. Back in the day, the theaters wouldn't accept them unless they ran at least 6 minutes. Think "Looney Tunes" or "The Three Stooges" (the "Stooges" shorts ran somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 to 20 minutes). Notorious cheapskate Leon Schlesinger, the original Producer of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (Warner Bros. Cartoons were either one or the other) were usually no more than a frame or two longer than 6 minutes, but NO longer (by orders from Leon). Those three things (along with cartoons) were called "Short Subjects" or simply "Shorts". This movie consists of all 8 Serial installments, edited together - minus the preview of the next installment (seen at the end of each part) along with the recap (seen at the beginning of everything after Part 1), when a Narrator would say something like, "Last time you remember..." and they would show you scenes from the previous part - or several previous parts - before the story continued. That was just in case you hadn't seen whatever highlights came before the part you were seeing THIS time, so you'd be able to come in at any point after Part 1, but you'd still know the high points of whatever came before the one you were seeing now.
Anyway, "The Painted Stallion" is pretty standard Western Movie fare, but the thing that breaks the formula with other Westerns is that there are 3 heroes who rode together (instead of a single hero, like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers), and the movies would always have a "sidekick", so the Good Guy would have someone to talk to when no one else was around. The sidekick was guaranteed to be on the Good Guy's side in the story, as well as providing the "Comic Relief", for when things got heavy for the Good Guy. And of course there would be any number of Bad Guys and their evil minions, because you'd have a pretty boring film without Bad Guys to vanquish, right before the ending. Kids, when you study what comprises a story (even Shakespeare or "A Christmas Carol"), you'll learn about Protagonists (Good Guys) and Antagonists (Bad Guys). And I was so busy explaining The Old Days, I missed the end of this one! Now I'll have to find out when it's running again, just to see the last 10 minutes!! I'll update this review after that. What I CAN tell you at the moment is that "The Painted Stallion" was an enjoyable old-time Western, with lots of action and "Bang-bang-shoot-'em-up"-type scenes, as a good western should! I can tell you that one of our three heroes, the one in the South of the border Sombrero is none other than Duncan Renaldo. He was one of the original Three Mesquiteers, and when TV finally showed up (delayed a few years by this little thing called World War II), Renaldo (spelled "Reynaldo" later)
