After a decade stuck in program Westerns, John Wayne turned the career corner to A-pics in John Ford’s STAGECOACH, yet still had a few of these 3 MESQUITEERS oaters in his future. This one offers a pretty good setup, but the scattershot execution typical of a 6-reel programmer. Here, circus owner Carole Landis is helpless to stop her successful Big Top show from being mysterious sabotaged. Forced into bankruptcy and a retreat to her late uncle’s dilapidated ranch, she’s now being run off that property as well! Turns out the ranch is worth a lot of money (land rights for an upcoming dam project she's unaware of); and ‘loyal’ manager Ralph Graves is tricking her into a panic sale. You’ll note that the story works perfectly well without Wayne, Ray Corrigan & goofy Max Terhune (The 3 Mesquiteers) figuring into things. They’re wedged in all the same, along with a man in one of the worst gorilla suits you’ll ever see (Landis bringing some of the circus along) and a rare chance to see Wayne ride behind a prize trotter with the horse’s tail & ass right in his face. Worth the whole pic.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: At one point, William Lava’s score suddenly breaks into ‘Le Bal’ from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. (Listen up for the harp intro.) Surely a Western first.
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