The 3 Mesquiteers

RIDERS OF WHISTLING SKULL-1937-In this strange western 3 cow pokes Stoney Brook (Robert Livingston), Tucson Smith (Ray “Crash” Corrigan) and Lullaby Joslin (Max Terhune) known collectively as "The Three Mesquiteers" help Betty Marsh (Mary Russell) locate her missing archaeologist father (John Van Pelt) who's disappeared while investigating a secret cave and a lost Indian tribe. After several battles with hostile Indians the group finds professor Marsh being held prisoner in the cave because he won't spill the beans about a hidden treasure to a half breed named Rutledge (Roger Williams). In the cave they seem to encounter a living mummy. Before Smith is "sacrificed" he's saved by his buddies who also cause an avalanche that destroys the bad guys. Lullaby also has dummy named Elmer. With all the talk about hieroglyphics, maps, lost tribes, it seems more like a forerunner of the much later Jungle Jim series than a western! 

This weird western was directed by Mack Wright who'd made THE SINGING COWBOY with Gene Autry and the bizarre serial ROBINSON CRUSOE OF CLIPPER ISLAND. He did more work as assistant or second unit director and was also an actor.

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Let Sitting Bull Lie

SITTING BULL-1954- In the Black Hills of Dakota “once again the white man comes”. The great Indian chief Sitting Bull (J. Carroll Nash) leads his Sioux Nation against the invading, gold seeking white men. His second in command is Crazy Horse (Iron Eyes Cody). They attack some grubby prospectors who'd been on their land. Major Parrish (Dale Robertson) is concerned about the Indians' fate but locks horns with General Custer (Douglas Kennedy) and gets transferred to an Indian agency and is dumped by his fiancee Kathy (Mary Howell from THW WILD ONES; she was in THE MAD MAGICIAN the same year as this) for a reporter Wentworth (William Hopper). The minute he gets to the new post he locks horns with Webster (Thomas B.Henry), the head agent who calls the captive Indians “renegade dogs”. After Parrish sticks Webster's head in a pot of gruel, the Indians revolt. Parrish lets them go but Webster kills Sitting Bull's son. President Grant (John Hamilton, acting very “Perry White-ish” in a highlight role) wants to meet with Sitting Bull so with the help of an ex-slave Parrish tries to set it up. To gain the chief's trust Parrish has to fight Crazy Horse in a knife fight. They have a pow-wow but it doesn't go as planned and Gen Custer leads his men to slaughter at The Little Big Horn (conviently Wentworth goes with them). Parrish is almost shot by a firing squad but Kathy brings Sitting Bull to Grant and convinces him to spare Parrish's life. It all ends happily but as we know in real life that was not to be. 

I guess this low budget technicolor western was trying to be sympathetic to the Native American tribes but the stiff acting and cliched script undermine the whole thing though I don't think it's as bad as I've been led to believe. Director Sidney Salkow was working on TV's LASSIE at the time he made this.

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