Overland Stage Raiders, with Louise Brooks, was released on this day in 1938

Overland Stage Raiders, starring John Wayne, was released on this day in 1938. It was Louise Brooks' last film. In Overland Stage Raiders, the “Three Mesquiteers” (led by Wayne) fight bad guys in the modern-day west. The “stages” being raided are buses bearing gold shipments to the east. Airborne hijackers steal the gold, but the Mesquiteers defeat the crooks and then parachute to safety. The film stars John Wayne, who was then on the brink of stardom. Brooks plays his love interest.

More about the film can be found on the Louise Brooks Society website filmography page.

For Brooks, Overland Stage Raiders was little more than a $300.00 paycheck. For columnists and critics, Brooks’ supporting role in this lowly B-western was yet another attempt at a comeback for a once famous star. Louella Parsons wrote “Louise Brooks, who used to get glamour girl publicity about her famous legs, is starting all over again as a leading lady in a Western with John Wayne.”

In the Fox West Coast Bulletin, the East Coast Preview Committee noted “The production is well acted and directed and presents several novel touches, as well as excellent photography.” Film Daily thought the “Fast-moving cowboy and bandit story will entertain the western fans. . . . George Sherman directed the picture, and gets a maximum of action and speed from the story.”

Variety went further, “This series improves with each new adventure. Starting out as typical cow country stories, Republic has seemingly upped the budget as successive chapters caught on. Raiders is as modern as today, yet contains plenty of cross-country hoss chases and six-shooter activity. . . . Louise Brooks is the femme appeal with nothing much to do except look glamorous in a shoulder-length straight-banged coiffure. . . . Should please juveniles and elders alike.”

Despite Brooks’ new hairstyle, and despite her appearance in this lesser film, there is little to redeem it. Brooks adored Wayne, but could not stand the humiliation of this sort of film. Overland Stage Raiders would be Louise Brooks’ last movie. She soon left Hollywood, and slid into decades-long obscurity.

As the years passed, John Wayne became of superstar, and in the 1950s his early films were re-released both in the United States and in Europe. And once gain, Overland Stage Raiders was shown in movie theaters, and in the 1960s and 1970s, on television. (Brooks was sometimes mentioned in the TV listings.) The posters and lobby cards for the later reissue emphasized Wayne’s name, while Brooks’ was deleted.

Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in the late 1930s and early 1940s in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Netherlands Antilles, Palestine (Israel), Sweden, and the United Kingdom (including England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, and Scotland); in the last-decades of the 20th Century, the film has also been shown, either in theaters or on television, in Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, and elsewhere. In a few instances in the United States, the film was also promoted under the title 3 Mesquiteers.

Elsewhere, Overland Stage Raiders was shown under the title Bandidos Encobertos (Brazil); Pozemní stádioví lupiči (Czechoslovakia); Guet-apens dans les airs (France); Gold in den Wolken (Germany); Cavalca e spara (Italy); Ringo Cavalca e spara (Italy – later retitle); Gouddorst (The Netherlands); Gold in den Wolken (Poland); Guet-apens dans les airs (Switzerland); Грабители дилижансов (U.S.S.R.); Cavalca e spara (Vatican City); Ringo cavalca e spara (Vatican City – later retitle); Cabalga y dispara (Venezuela). In Italy, Overland Stage Raiders was re-released along with another John Wayne film, Red River Range, under the joint title Cavalca e spara.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE FILM YOU MAY NOT KNOW:

— There were three movies based on William Colt MacDonald’s Three Mesquiteers books, all made before Republic took their turn with the series. Hoot Gibson played Stony Brooke in RKO’s Powdersmoke Range (1935), with Harry Carey as Tucson Smith and Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams as Lullaby Joslin. The movie was billed as ‘The Barnum and Bailey of Westerns!’ — its cast of cowboy stars, included Bob Steele and Tom Tyler (both would later become Mesquiteers in the series), along with William Farnum, William Desmond, Buzz Barton, Wally Wales, Art Mix, Buffalo Bill Jr., Buddy Roosevelt, and Franklyn Farnum.

— In the course of the 51 Republic movies, there were twelve actors who played the Mesquiteers in nine different teams. Robert Livingston was the first to play the part of Stoney Brooke in the Republic series. Wayne played the lead in eight of the 51 films in the Three Mesquiteers series released between 1936 and 1943.

— Overland Stage Raiders was one of two Westerns John Wayne filmed at Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth, California — a well known location for genre films. The other, made a few months after Overland Stage Raiders, was John Ford’s legendary Stagecoach (1939).

— On August 3, 1938 Joseph I. Breen, a film censor with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, wrote to  M. J. Siegel of the Republic Pictures Corporation recommending that the number of killings in the film be reduced and pointing out actions cut by censor boards, such as firing into the camera.

— Yakima Canutt and Tommy Coats performed stunts in Overland Stage Raiders.

More about  Overland Stage Raiders can be found on the newly revamped Louise Brooks Society website on its Overland Stage Raiders (filmography page).

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