Three Mesquiteers movies

A banker struggles to keep his bank solvent and his town from going bankrupt after the bank is robbed and all its money taken. The Three Mesquiteers ride into town and set out to help.

The Three Mersquiteers, Tucson Smith (Bob Steele), Stony Brooke (Tom Tyler) and Lullaby Josline (Jimmie Dodd), run into trouble trying to keep Tim Clay (John James), son of their employer Minera Clay (Elizabeth Valentine), out of trouble. They think their problems are over when Tim announces his intentions of marrying Claire Robbins (Lois Collier). But Neil MOrgan (Tom Chatterton), Minerva's lawyer, is plotting to get her ranch through resorting to the water-hole-racket of poisoning her cattle, and puts a squatter on the property, hoping to keep him there until the Squatters' Rights Bill becomes effective.

Everyone is looking for a three foot high horse called Brilliant that can lead them to a gold mine. It's owner has been killed and the Three Mesquiteers have been mistakenly arrested for the murder.

In 1871, the Rangers are disbanded due to lack of funds so Monroe County sets up it's own police force. All ranchers must pay for protection, but those who do not are quickly robbed and/or killed. Johnny Steele, is head of the police, but his second in command is working for Judge Morgan, who leads the outlaws. When the Three Mesquiteers try to help Ben Walker, they are accused of his murder and of trying to rob the stage.

It's 1941 and three Nazis escape from a Canadian prison. Two are killed but the third kills Paul Schiller and assumes his identity. This leads him to the Three Mesquiteers ranch where his uncle Dr. Steiner is developing a chemical that will extract rubber from a local plant. The Nazis are out to stop the project and they get the fake Schiller to sabotage the Doctor's formula.

The Three Mesquiteers, Tucson, Stony, and Lullaby (Dodd's 1st appearance in the series) arrive to help Sheriff Lippy fight the outlaws. But when the gang leader Curly Joe captures Tucson and notices the resemblance, he assumes Tucson's identity.

It is 1937, but the life out West has not changed much. The boys are working at the Wyoming ranch of Captain Marvin herding horses which he sells to Kurt Redman. Marvin will not sell any horses to any army, but the boys find out that Redman is a German agent shipping the horses directly to the Third Reich. When Marvin tries to stop Redman, his son Tad, who is studying medicine in Germany, is arrested and held hostage. Marvin must fire the boys as the sneaky German agents take over the ranch, but the boys will not give up their attempt to stop them.

Mrs. Hensley (Evelyn Brent),president of the Spring Valley bank, is also the leader of a gang that rob banks in the surrounding communities. Despite her protests, the Bankers Association offers a$5,000 reward for each bank robber killed. Mrs. Hensley then devises a scheme to turn the reward offer into a bonanza for herself and her aide Rick West (Donald Curtis.) Coffee (Budd Buster), a member of the gang is to accost each stranger that comes to Spring Valley, pretend to be drunk, and ask them to take him to the bank so he can deposit his money. At the bank, it is made to appear that the stranger is attempting a hold-up and he is shot to death by Coffee's accomplice Dallas (Kenne Duncan.) Lullaby Joslin (Rufe Davis) nearly falls victim to this trap but is rescued by his pals, Story Brooke (Tom Tyler) and Tucson Smith (Bob Steele.) he trio ten joins forces with the sister Anne Henderson (Lois Collier) and brother Jimmy Henderson (John James) of an earlier victim, Wayne Henderson (Tom Seidel), and soon put an end to the Healey gang.

Daggett is out to stop the completion of an oil well. He cheats Foster at poker and then forces him to delay the drilling. But the Mesquiteers are on the job with Lullaby posing as a cleaning lady to get evidence.

After a payroll robbery the Mesquiteers catch up with the gang. But the members escape, the gang leader is killed, and they end up with only the leader's young son, who is quickly sent to a work farm. They adopt the boy, hoping to learn where the money is. Just as their kindness is about to pay off, a gang member takes the boy away, forcing him to retrieve the money.

The Mesquiteers return to Texas after the Civil War to find Army carpetbaggers fighting the local bushwackers. They quickly learn that Capt. Hawks and his men are the culprits and join up with Morgan and his men.

Gaucho escapes from Braden's gang only to be shot by them. The Mesquiteers drive away the outlaws and take his money on to his mother. But Isabella thinks Tucson is her long lost son and they don't have the heart to tell her he is dead.

The Cherokee Strip is off limits to the Rangers, so that is where badman Lemar operates from. When the Rangers capture his brother and the jury sentences him to hang, Lemar starts killing the jurists. Then the scoundrels kidnap the Captain's daughter Doris...

Commissioner Tredwell is the law of the land and he gets whatever he wants with the help of hired guns and lackey lawyer Conners. The only one who publicly stands up to Tredwell is Beecham of the Clarion. Beecham has his paper burned to the ground and when he starts a petition to make Wyoming a state, taking the power away from Tredwell, he is killed. But when Kansas Kate comes in to visit her son Conners, she sees what is going on and she takes over the paper and keeps the pressure on Tredwill. With this Conners has mixed emotions, but the boys do everything they can to protect Kate and the paper.

When a strip of land along the Red River is declared in Indian Territory instead of Texas, the Rangers leave and the Army moves in. Now ex-rangers the Mesquiteers stay on as scouts. The new Colonel plans to make peace with the Indians but unknown to him the notorious Indian Wanechee is posing as his interpreter. The Mesquiteers learn of the masquerade but are not believed and instead are arrested just as Wanechee moves to wipe out the arriving wagon train.

Dan Burke is after a mail contract and Stevens through his henchman Keno is out to stop him. When Burke's son Larry brings the payroll he is murdered and the Three Mesquiteers blamed. Young Tim Burke breaks them out of jail and they start the timed mail run to obtain the contract. But Keno and his men plan to stop them by using dynamite to make a road block.

It is 1853 and settlers are pouring into California which means trouble for the old Spanish landowners. The El Dorado Mine Co. wants the land of Don Ortega for the minerals and is using the settlers and his friend Don Carlos to take the land over. But Tucson is on the side of Roberto and see's that something is not right with all the trouble they have been having. But the situation turns ugly for Don Ortega when Roberto is set up for a murder he did not commit.

Dust storms and drought make herding horses a tough job for the boys. When the new owner of the ranch, Lydia Phelps, shows up, the ranch is in dire financial straits. The Martin Ranch has the contract to sell horses to the army. Some of the men are working for Martin to make sure that the Circle H will not have enough horses to even submit a bid to the army.

The Continental Telegraph Co. is putting a telegraph line to the town and the fort. They know that the telegraph is needed to stop the activities of the outlaws, but only the outlaws can see the importance of the telegraph. They steal the supply wagons form the boys, which leaves only enough supplies to run a 30 mile line between Fort Dodd and Fort Jackson. But the outlaws attack the camp, killing everyone including Tom and Emily. The boys get more money and a new engineer to build the line between the fort's. This time, they are not going to let the outlaws stop them and they will find the head outlaw.

Stony Brooke returns to his home town only the learn that his father, Sheriff Brooke, has been murdered and that his boyhood friend, Tucson Smith has been convicted and is to hang for the killing. The killing was actually committed by Brooke's deputy Tom Blackton, when he feared that his activities as the secret head of a gang of cattle rustlers and bank robbers was about to be exposed. Blackton has taken over as sheriff. Rancher Jim Marsden helps Tucson escape, and Stony encounters the wounded Tucson and helps him back to his ranch, where Tucson's sister, Helen treats his wounds. When Blackton's posse arrive, Tucson escapes through a trap door and heads for the hills. Blackton convinces Stony of Tucson's guilt, and Stony becomes a deputy with the intent of hunting down his former friend. But he changes his mind when a circuit judge, coming to preside over a new trial for Tucson, is killed. Stony continues to work for Blackton, hoping to get the evidence needed to clear Tucson, and tells his jack-of-all-trades friend Lullaby, who has taken over the barber shop from Smithers, to try to get some information from his talkative customers.

Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico, known as The Three Mesquiteers, return to Oklahoma at the close of the Spanish-American War, and are concerned that some of their wounded buddies have no prospects for a satisfactory future. When the government offers preferred homesteads in the newly-opened Oklahoma territory to war veterans, they send word for their pals to join them there. Once there, the veterans meet a hostile reception as the cattlemen resent the influx of "nesters" and are determined to drive them out. Mace Liscomb and his brother Orv plan not only to drive out the homesteaders, but to also double cross the cattlemen and gain exclusive titles to the range lands for themselves. Stony and his pals eventually show the honest cattlemen that there is room for the settlers and that both are fighting a common enemy.

This entry in Republic's "Three Mesquiteers" series has a misnomer for a title since the action takes place in Texas and pre-statehood Oklahoma, and the Rocky Mountains are in neither state, but Republic, which easily produced the best of the B-westerns, quite often used a title that had nothing to do with the locale of the film. Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico are Texas Rangers unable to enter the territory known as the Panhandle as it is not part of the state, and lawlessness runs rampant there, under the guerrilla leader, King Barton. They discover a young boy, Danny Burke, wounded and left to die by the Barton gang. They nurse him back to health, but he is killed in another raid by the Barton outfit. Stony takes possession of the boy's gun and vows vengeance. Since the strip of land hiding the outlaws is under Federal authority, the Mesquiteers enter the territory with a plan to lure the outlaws across the Texas border. Stony, posing as his look-alike outlaw double known as The Laredo Kid, stages a jail break to free King Barton's younger brother Jim from a Texas jail and insinuates himself into the gang. Barton has been forcing a Panhandle gunsmith named Manners to provide weapons for him, and Manners' daughter, Doris, is antagonistic toward Stony, whom she believes to be The Laredo Kid. Stony soon convinces her of his true identity. The plot to lure the Barton gang into Texas is progressing nicely until the real Laredo Kid shows up and exposes Stony.

Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico, the Three Mesquiteers, are returning from Mexico and are stopped at the border by Army officials, who are attempting to apprehend smugglers who are buying cheap silver in Mexico and smuggling it into the States, where they can take advantage of a silver stabilizing measure and sell it at a high price. The Army men suspect the Mesquiteers. Don Diego, uncle of Rico and Carlos is being urged by Ransome to sell his mine but refuses. This decision conflicts with the plans of Ransome, who is the brains behind the smugglers, who are using a connection between a Ransome mine - on the Mexican side, to the Juanita mine - on the USA side. Don Diego's plans to reopen his mine lays Ransome open to exposure. Ransome has Don Diego murdered and the blame laid on Carlos. The Mesquiteers, convinced that Ransome is involved in the silver smuggling as well as the murder of Don Diego, set about to prove Carlos' innocence and Ransome's guilt.

This entry in Republic's "Three Mesquiteer" series, that skipped back forth in time much like Brick Bradford in his "Time Top" machine, finds the Mesquiteers, Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico, intervening when an 1870's wagon train of settlers, headed by Dr. Bailey, is attacked by Indians. The wagon train leader is killed and the Mesquiteers agree to guide the settlers to their destination. Bailey and his daughter Anna and the other settlers have been lured westward by offers of cheap land. Arriving, they find that the land sold them by Judge Platt and Sheriff Gorman is practically worthless, but through hard labor and courage they manage to clear it and have reached the point where they are about to make a fair living when they are beset by exorbitant taxes. Judge Platt and his cronies have information that a railroad is to be run through the territory, and they plan to break the settlers by high taxes, regain the land at forced sales, and sell it to the railroad. The Mesquiteers arrange for a cattle sale in order to pay the taxes but Platt and his henchmen, led by Steve Carson, contrive to rob the Mesquiteers as they return from Omaha, and make it appear that the Mesquiteers took the funds and made up the hold-up story. But Stony, in the guise of the Masked Rider (a plot device much favored in the Mesquiteer films with Livingston following his essay of the title role in "The Lone Ranger Rides Again" serial), and his two friends begin a campaign to end the activities of Platt and his gang.

Montana Bill Bell, a friend of the Three Mesquiteers, Stony Brooke, Rusty Joslin and Rico Renaldo, is killed in a rodeo accident and the trio reluctantly places his young daughter Peggy in an orphanage while they earn enough money to qualify for her adoption. Visiting the orphanage, they discover that Peggy's foot has been injured in an accident. The superintendent, Melloney, silences Peggy when she attempts to tell them about it. Despite their suspicions they agree to raise the $400 needed for special treatment required for Peggy's injury. To raise the money, Stony boxes four rounds in an exhibition with "Killer" McCully and succeeds in knocking him out. Taking the money to the orphanage, the Mesquiteers are impressed when they find that Melloney has stretched his budget and purchased the equipment already. They are unaware that Melloney and associate J. D. Crone did so to keep attention from being focused on the home, as they are exploiting the kids and taking funds allotted to running the orphanage. When Stony sees a small boy being bullied by an attendant, he hears enough to convince him that a child-labor sweatshop is being run in the basement. In the garb of a "Masked Rider", and with the aid of Rusty, Rico and nurse Ruth Miller, the job of rescuing the children and convicting the crooks begins.